


A Hard Way Through

by LUNAtic2111



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8000182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LUNAtic2111/pseuds/LUNAtic2111
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The new mating bond was shooting through me, the beats of my heart alternating in pumping ice and boiling water through my veins. Instinct was screaming at me to go get my mate, get her and never let her go. Reason was screaming at me to fight instinct down. I had no right to her. I didn’t know her. </p>
<p>The heavy blankness that had taken possession of my chest smothered it all.”</p>
<p>Jarred in the wake of a lightning strike mating bond, Lucien’s centuries-long struggle to keep his heart and mind from shattering is coming to a close. Standing between him and defeat is nothing but a tiny rosebud by the name of Elain, which has started to bloom in his heart – but he might not be the only one in need of a friend in the festering Spring Court climate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Return to Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a Lucien POV, so the way people and events are perceived may at times be very different from how a Feyre POV would portray them. First-person narration depicts the narrator's interpretations and feelings, not the author's and definitely not an unbiased truth!

Things were going down the drain with a speed that left my head spinning.

Feyre flashed me a smile, that viper who had once been my friend, and she could as well have hissed as a snake for the message it conveyed. Feyre, my friend turned enemy.

Passive as I had let the world go by lately, I let Feyre and Tamlin enter the Spring Court manor, arm in arm, a picture of serenity but for that look in Feyre’s eyes. As the doors swung close behind them, I remained frozen on the sun-flooded gravel drive, surrounded by light and the scent of roses in the air, and deep and all-consuming emptiness.

The feel of Hybern was still clinging to my skin, the sense of coldness and cruelty sticking to me like a smear of black oil. The new mating bond was shooting through me, the beats of my heart alternating in pumping ice and boiling water through my veins.

Instinct was screaming at me to go get my mate, get her and never let her go. She was mine. She was _mine_.

Reason was screaming at me to fight instinct down. I had no right to her. I didn’t know her. I didn’t want her.

Gut feeling was screaming at me to remove Feyre from my home, to eliminate the knife that Tamlin held to his own heart.

The heavy blankness that had taken possession of my chest smothered it all.

I turned and stalked down the wide rose-bordered lane. For on one point, all those screaming voices in my head could agree on: I could not be in a house with the two of them. Not right now. Not so soon.

I had a mate. A mate. I had a _mate_.

Wet hair, wide doe eyes, a tear through my soul as it recognized that of a kindred one…

Down the lane, almost running now, through the beautiful iron gates, out, out, out.

War was coming. It would be thanks to Tamlin and his blind rage. It would be thanks to me, because I had been too weak to stop it.

The feeling of uselessness I’d been pushing to the edges of my mind ever since I found out about Feyre’s true allegiance threatened to overwhelm me again.

I pushed harder.

Back in the Night Court, seeing Feyre with wings and death in her eyes… She would have shot that arrow. She would have killed me. My friend would have killed me.

There had been no mistaking it. No one who had seen her in that moment could have believed her to be under someone’s thrall. The strength radiating from her, the determination…  There was no way anyone, not even Rhys, could have the power to control _that_.

Rescuing Feyre had been all that had been holding me up these past few months. The hope of getting Feyre back had kept me going all through Tamlin’s gradual descent into madness, the hope that she could stop him from going over the edge.

She hadn’t come back, and Tamlin had gone over the edge. And the picture of her training an arrow on me remained very vivid in my inner eye.

I’d left the estate behind and was now brushing through the eternally lush, young forest of Spring covering the sprawling lands. So different from the woods of my birth court, where my red hair blended into the fiery explosion of colored leaves, where the sound of birdsong surrendered to the playful crackle of leaves under feet and the anticipatory scent of renewal made way for the rich aroma of life that had been lived.

It still wasn’t prudent to be anything less than a hundred percent on your guard in this forest; Tamlin and I had badly neglected purging the Court of the filthy remnants of Amarantha’s rein. Right now, though, I couldn’t even be bothered to check my immediate surroundings as I trudged through the greenery.

I’d done okay during all those Amarantha years we’d lived a cursed life in Spring Court. I’d been ravaged by her, sure, but losing an eye was nothing to losing one half of my soul. I’d been able to get back up from it. I’d tried to keep the Spring Court functional, even as its numbers diminished with every High Fae who left for the Mortal Realm in search of death at the hands of a human girl. I’d slowly given up hope along with everyone else, even before Tamlin stopped allowing people to go. I’d never had much hope to begin with, just because I’m an insufferable pessimist, so that hadn’t been much of a change.

Then Feyre came, and for a little while, hope had hit me over the head with a club. I had truly believed that things might take a turn for the better yet.

And then – Under the Mountain.

Bit by bit, parts of me had been chipped away, until there was barely anything left of myself. I’d been at my brothers’ mercy once again, each time I’d looked into the eyes of those who had murdered my beloved scraping off a layer of my soul. I had watched Tamlin endure Amarantha’s taunts and jokes and more, powerless to come to his aid; I’d seen Feyre willingly enter capture to fight for her love, my contribution to her struggles limited to one single healing –shards after shards broke off. A big chunk went missing when I was reduced to a tool for Amarantha to torture others – when she had Tamlin whip me not for my pain, but for his, when she’d put me in a death trap not to taste my fear, but Feyre’s. The rest of me had shriveled away while I had been lying on a bed with my back open and bleeding, perfectly aware that Feyre was injured and dying and unable to even do so much as lift my head to look her way.

She’d died, she’d been revived; we’d returned to the Spring Court, and I’d tried to piece myself back together, but all the parts of me that had cared, all the energy I had once had to defy Tamlin for his own good and Feyre’s… that had been left behind.

 _You gave up._ That’s what she’d hurled at my head, clad in foreign fighting gear and sprouting wings. _You gave up on me._

Yes, I’d given up on her. I’d given up on her, and me, and Tamlin. I hadn’t know what to do to help her, I hadn’t know what to do when the adversary was my own closest friend, I didn’t even know how to get out of bed most mornings. But how much she had _expected_ of me! Feyre had been so convinced of my powers to sway Tamlin that she had actually been disappointed when I couldn’t do it. That she had come to _hate_ me for it.

After she’d been taken – after she’d left – I’d lost what little remained of my influence. When Tamlin stormed and raged and trashed the manor, I didn’t attempt to stop him. When he’d ceased all efforts of rebuilding the court to focus all resources on finding Feyre, I had said nothing against it. When he allowed his blind rage to lash out on an unlucky servant who happened to be too close, I let him. It was after those instances, when I sought out the victims of his rage to offer healing, that I had discovered that my magic had barely recovered after being released from Amarantha’s leash.

Finding Feyre became the only thing that mattered. Only she could put an end to this. Only she could stop the raving madman Tamlin had become. So when he’d vented his feral fury at me, I’d endured it, and when he’d sent me on whatever errant he’d thought conducive to his retrieval mission, I’d fulfilled it.

Right up to the point where I actually did find Feyre, and discovered that she had no interest whatsoever to ever return to us.

Since then, there was simply nothing left. Nothing left of me, and nothing left to do. Tamlin had transformed from a brooding but responsible High Lord to a force of nature set upon an impossible goal, disregarding all costs.

This was why I’d only watched, helpless, incredulous, as Tamlin sold our land to Hybern. Doomed the world, and thought nothing of it, if it brought him back his lost love. I had had plenty of evidence that nothing in this world would budge by my bidding. I had nothing to fight whatever the Cauldron threw at me. 

And here we were. I was second in command to a lunatic, who had just led his most dangerous enemy into his hearth and home.

I stopped dead as my energy suddenly left me with a whoosh, and just stood there on the mossy forest ground like a puppet with its strings cut. I didn’t even know whether having a mate made my situation better or worse. I was at a total loss as to where I should go from here.

By the Cauldron, I wanted someone to talk to. Isolation was corroding my mind, all the unsaid things swelling and festering from being held inside. I wanted someone to know what it felt like to face my mate, only to have her ripped away from me before I could even tell her my name – I wanted it off my chest. I wanted to share my rage and hurt at Feyre’s betrayal, I longed to confide in someone with my concern about what she was going to do with the Spring Court and its inhabitants, my worry about Hybern, and Jurian, and Tamlin. I felt such a sudden burning desire for trust, such an overwhelming need to share my mind with another. Was it the mating bond that was fueling this want? The unexpected existence of a soul mate, my perfect match, who would be the one to turn to, if only she were here?

A mate. I had a mate.

The initial shock had worn off, and with it the ferocious drive to take her, to have her with me, to never let her out of my sight. I must have been crazy to want her here. She didn’t know me. I didn’t know her. Being Feyre’s sister, it wouldn’t take long until she would hate me, too. If it wouldn’t be Feyre’s whispering that would turn her, it would be Rhys’.

Rhys. Rhys was the big unknown figure in the big game I was still refusing to play. Before I had seen Feyre with an arrow trained on my heart, her throwing her lot in with his side would have had me immediately questioning my disdain for him. Feyre had given her life for me and mine, after all… there had been a time where I would have put a lot of weight on her judgement. But what to believe now? I had never seen any evidence of Rhysand being anything but a cruel, twisted bastard. And yet Feyre stood with him. 

A scream tore from my throat, and with it, a bout of energy vented itself from my body. I hadn’t even known how much rage had swelled up within me until I started pounding the trees around me. Started, and found myself unable to stop.

What to believe? Whom to trust? What to make of this mess? What to do? What in the name of all that was sacred to me was I supposed to do now?

I hit and slashed and lashed out until the forest had a clearing that hadn’t been there before. I punched and kicked and pommeled until my hands were raw and bleeding and sported broken bones. Until my body was covered in sweat and shaking and tired enough to give out.

And then I slid down one if the remaining trees, sat on the damp grass and watched the skin on my knuckles knit together, my body tingling with the magic trying to mend the damage I’d done. Slow work.

My mate. I had a mate.

I could no longer stop my thoughts from touching on the matter.

I’d been stupid, so stupid. If I hadn’t blurted out the truth, maybe no one would have noticed. With everything that had gone down in that room, who would have noticed that this new High Fae didn’t only have the smell of the Cauldron on her, but also that of the mating bond? But I had to go and shout it out for all the world to hear, I had to go and make her a target.

I should have kept it secret. I should have kept her safe.

Memories started flooding my mind, and I couldn’t stop the invasion, could shield myself from the onslaught of blood and screams and pain that was the memory of my beloved Isa’s death. I covered my face with my hands, but my hands were bloody, just as my brothers’ hands had been whilst they cut open her body, made her suffer and relished in both our pain. I had managed to hide the sight behind others over the years, but mating had broken down the walls around my mind, and there it was again, the memory of my life breaking.

I had announced the bond. Who was to say that no one would bring word to my father? Who was to say that my father would consider a newly made High Fae any less of a disgrace to the family than a lesser fairy? Who was to say that my father wouldn’t just kill Elain out of spite?

I had disclosed the bond, and everything that stood between Elain and my family now was the tenuous protection of the High Lord of Night’s power and grace.

And again, everything came down to that one question: Who was Rhysand really?

I waited until my self-inflicted wounds had closed, then tried to rub the remaining blood off as best I could. When I was decent enough, I retraced my steps to the manor.

The metal gates loomed before me, no longer a sight promising a return home. I braced myself to enter the manor, even though I knew I wouldn’t have to face either Feyre or Tamlin for the rest of the day – they would close themselves off until breakfast tomorrow at least.

The front lawn wasn’t empty, though; two little figures were darting back and forth between the decoratively pruned trees which Ianthe – I growled at the mere thought of her – had requested be shaped to resemble the Spring Court’s fertility symbols, stags. It didn’t take me long to make out Alis, too, sitting on a bench in the manor’s shade and stitching away at some needlework in her lap, all the while keeping a keen eye on her young charges. She turned her head at the sounds of my approaching steps.

“Lucien.” A small smile wrinkled her tree bark skin as she greeted me, but I could discern no joy in her for her lady’s return. I sometimes wondered whether Alis, out of all of us, might have been the only one to instantly realize how much better Feyre was faring under Rhys’ care.

I returned her smile, but found myself the target of her frighteningly canny, scrutinizing stare.

“Are you all right?”

I started. I wasn’t on the receiving end of that question all that often.

“Yes. Tamlin’s plans worked to perfection. We have Feyre back, safe and sound.”

That didn’t appease her scrutiny. “So, we have the lovey-dovey couple back,” I added brightly. “I’m so looking forward to being the third wheel again! All the snogging in hidden corners of the manor… The nightly sounds, the silly ogling… ”

“Well, you go find a nice charming lady for yourself, why don’t you?” Alis countered. “It’s not as if there aren’t enough girls lining up to be the center of your attention, what, Lucien?”

She meant well, I knew it – she’d been quietly encouraging me to pursue more than just pleasure relationships for ages. She didn’t know how hard her jab hit home this time.

“Lucien?”

Alis would never sell my mate for her own benefit. The information would be safe with her, if only I could bring myself to speak the words.

I turned and almost ran, barely avoiding knocking over one of her boys in my haste to go hide in my room and not come out until I had shoved all of those unwanted emotions in a very remote corner of my mind and heart. 


	2. Know Your Enemy

 

Breakfast was a quite spectacular performance of feinted affection both on Feyre’s and my part. The mere fact that we were having breakfast just like any other day - as if I hadn’t met my mate yesterday – as if we hadn’t seen Feyre with _her_ mate, the High Lord of Night – as if we hadn’t seen Tamlin’s accursed agreement with a tyrant come to fruition – it was a sign of how false even the most everyday dealings in the Spring Court had become.

I’d barely slept – I didn’t sleep particularly well with the looming shadow of my enemy lurking next door. Feyre pranced out of her room in one of those dresses that I knew she hated, showered Tamlin with kisses, and gave me a sugary smile that reminded me she was hiding fangs underneath. I replied with a snarky grin, and hoped to convey casual insouciance by nonchalantly popping a grape into my mouth.

Our eyes remained locked as she danced over to her place at the table, hand in hand with Tamlin, and took a seat. The shadows underneath her eyes were as dark as mine.  

“It’s so good to have you brighten up our breakfast table again,” I greeted her lazily. “You wouldn’t believe how much we missed you.” That second part wasn’t even a lie.

“And you wouldn’t believe how much I want this breakfast,” she retorted. “Night Court food… revolting. Sometimes I wondered whether my food was still alive on my plate.”

“And yet you filled out nicely.”

For a fraction of a heartbeat, pits of fire sparked out of Feyre’s eyes. _So you remember the state I was in last time I dwelled in this manor, don’t you_ , they seemed to say.

“At some point, in the Night Court, I realized that I had to keep my strength up if I ever wanted to see Tamlin again. So I ate.”

“And you would be well advised, Lucien, not to keep remembering Feyre of the ordeal that lies behind her,” Tamlin growled in a carefully contained tone. He reached out to cover Feyre’s hand with his own, and the minute wince she gave at his touch escaped his notice.

Her gaze bore into me; she knew that it had not escaped mine.

Why? Just why did she have to make him believe their love was still alive?

I slowly, deliberately, turned my head to Tamlin.

“We need to go back to cleaning out the Court, Tam. We’ve been slacking.”

The dangerous intensity was still in his voice. “We’ve been slacking?” He repeated.

“Yes, we have.” I was constantly treading on tenuous grounds with him, these days.  I used to be able to challenge him – what of his recent despotism would he let Feyre see?

“We did not slack,” he said softly. “Our priorities changed.”

“I’m surprised that this is the first thing on your mind, as well, Lucien,” Feyre’s voice sounded, ringing falsely in my ears. “What with Elain… Shouldn’t you be more concerned about getting her back?”

Her words made my heart turn heavy, and my mouth so dry I swallowed any reply. Just as she’d intended.

“I’m going to ride out today,” I managed to make myself say. “See what I can hunt down.”

Tamlin fixed me with a stare, but nodded, and that was that. I fled the room the instant I had choked down an alibi amount of food and rode off, and I didn’t return until after dark.

***

If only I could do that every day.  Unfortunately, though, I did have a function in this court apart from being third wheel, and after a few days of nonstop hunting from dawn till dusk, I was not only exhausted beyond measure and perpetually hungry, but also causing more than a few questions with my continued absence. A court-wide meeting I would not get away with missing finally put a stop to my evasive hunting trips. I stayed in bed longer than usual that day, putting off the inevitable moment of being face to face with Tamlin and Feyre for as long as I could. When I couldn’t delay it any further, I got up, swiped a late breakfast from the kitchens, and made my way to the little-used council room, where the meeting would take place.

The brief phase between the downfall of Under the Mountain and Feyre’s disappearance had seen our court liven up and brimming with Fae from all over the Spring Court and beyond; then the place had regressed again, gone back to barely more than its former paltry state. Courtiers had left rather than face Tamlin’s unstable self-control and questionable ruling choices.

I had always been able to breathe easier in meaningless company – idle chatter and court-trained nonsense left no room for dismal thoughts. The buzzing of so many Fae arriving for the council had a smirk settle on my face the instant I left my room, and I had enough snide remarks at the ready to almost felt prepared for the day.

I probably shouldn’t give Feyre the pleasure to avoid her so openly any longer, I decided upon seeing her in the splendid council room. Head held high, she sat next to Tamlin, at the head of the long ebony table. Her presence in a meeting as important as this one would have been inconceivable before; even now, I saw a few disdaining frowns cast her way. Tamlin had learned from his mistakes, though, at least from those few he allowed himself to see. He would grant Feyre every wish he could read from her eyes. And he was smitten by those eyes, hanging on her lips, _smiling_ at her…

A flash of sympathy for Feyre shook me; how she could endure to be so close to him, how she could return his loving smiles and keep the light in her eyes after all he – we – had done to her.

No.

I gave myself a mental slap. She might already be planning to take down the court that had been my home for centuries. No sympathy. I would not fall for her.

“There are still so many dresses left that Ianthe picked,” she was chirping as I weaved my way towards my chair next to Tamlin. “So I won’t have to go worry about getting new ones anytime soon. Ianthe, though,” she allowed her face to turn dark, “I do hope that you’re making an effort to catch her, after what she did to my sisters.”

“We are,” he hurried to reply. “Feyre, you can’t think…”

“Of course not,” she said promptly. “I know you didn’t intent for that to happen.”

“I just hope they’re all right,” she sighed. “I know what it’s like to be a prisoner in the Night Court. Rhys will let them live, but in what way…”

“Don’t worry, Feyre,” Tamlin tried to reassure her. “We’ll get them back.”

I forbade myself any reaction at the mention of my mate. Why did she have to bring it up? Was she testing me, expecting some kind of reaction?

“Lucien,” Feyre said to acknowledge my presence. Tamlin looked away from her face only to have a deep frown crease his forehead.

“That was one long hunt. I was starting to wonder whether you’d deign to grace this meeting with your presence.”

“Well, there is a lot of work to do,” I countered.

“We were talking about my sisters,” Feyre said. She searched me for a reaction, and was disappointed. Her eyes narrowed at me. “You don’t seem very perturbed by your mate’s fate. Aren’t you going to go all territorial and scream ‘She’s mine’ and fight tooth and nail for her?”

“Feyre,” Tamlin smoothly said in what might be a conciliatory effort.

“But she’s his mate,” she continued, unfazed, pretending not to understand him.

I fixed her with a stare. “Whoever said I wanted one?”

That had them both shut up, if only for the briefest moment. But where Tamlin looked genuinely confused, Feyre only delighted in putting salt into the wound.

“You sure sounded different when the bond snapped into place,” she thrilled.

I took a breath to retaliate. But suddenly, the effort to come up with a witty response was too much – simply too much. I just locked my eyes with hers, and tried to make her feel all my disgust. 

Then I remembered that Rhys might very well have taught her a few daemati tricks, and I dropped my gaze, slamming up walls I’d last used when I’d tried to keep her name from Rhys’ violent intrusion.  

“You’re readjusting well,” commented Tamlin, clueless. “Already going back to trading quips with Lucien.”

True, I used to like her all the better for her wit and biting remarks. For the fact that even as a human, she wouldn’t duck before me.  Now, all I could hear was the real bite in her words.

“Actually,” Tamlin continued, “Your sisters are part of what I want to discuss today.”

Feyre perked up. I, however, felt like he’d doused me in a bucked of Naga claws. My lips peeled back to reveal my teeth, and the snarl I loosed was the same sound that had come out of my mouth when I’d first seen my mate threatened.

“Do not make it public.”

Tamlin bristled. He stared me down, the other Fae currently taking their seats in the council room too numerous and too watchful to openly counter my challenge.

“Do not make it public that I have a mate and that you know who and where she is,” I growled, low enough for only Tam and Feyre to hear. “You know what happened last time.” _You know what my father might do._

Neither he nor Feyre pointed out that there had not, strictly speaking, been a last time. They knew what I meant. Tamlin huffed, but it implied consent. Feyre, on the other hand –Feyre blinked, slowly – and I realized I had just given her exactly what she’d wanted: the knowledge of what I would do to keep my mate safe.

***

Listening to Tamlin explain to the congregated Spring Court representatives that two High Fae had been taken by the Night Court to their territory and that any effort should be made to attain information on their precise whereabouts and wellbeing wasn’t even the worst part of this council.  

Somewhere along the way, Tamlin had lost the ability to trust his advisors. I’d been his only confidant for a long time, and I had been the only one to know about his dealings with Hybern. And the word _trust_ certainly didn’t apply to our relationship anymore. I barely managed to hide my cringes as Tamlin slowly prepared the members if his court for the Hybern army that was soon to march across our lands, without actually revealing whose army would march for what purpose. He remained notably imprecise as he warned them of a large number of faeries going for the wall, and even managed to make it sound vaguely like some kind of border patrol or protective mission.

“I’m sorry that I can’t do more for your sisters at the moment,” Tamlin told Feyre in a soft voice after he’d closed the meeting, and the advisors started filing out of the study. Feyre, who had made an excellent impression of a silly lady-to-be too querulous to keep to her own business throughout the meeting, was now rewarded with a few indulgent smiles from lingering males. “And about the Hybern deal – I need to break it to them slowly. It would try their loyalty a bit too hard to confront them with everything that happened during the last few weeks.”

Or maybe he just hadn’t dared tell them about the deal with Hybern until after it had proved successful. This time, when I met Feyre’s gaze, the disgust in her eyes matched mine.

She sighed dramatically. “I know you’re doing what you can. And you were right, by the way - court business is dull. I stayed only because it meant staying with you.”

I’d be sick if she continued this way. I got up to leave, but Feyre’s next words held me back.

“Tamlin.” She had moved to sit on Tam’s lap now. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way. I don’t want to restart old arguments. But after all that happened, I learned how important it is to be able to defend oneself. I know you’ll keep me safe, I know… And I don’t expect to run into the past kind of trouble again anytime soon, but… I simply want some defenses of my own. I still want to be trained.”

I couldn’t stop myself. “Oh, I’m sure you received ample training already.”

“You will watch your tongue,” Tamlin snarled in response, his tone now openly menacing.

“What are you saying, Lucien?” Feyre put a well-placed hint of a whimper into her voice. “I was a captive of Rhysand, body and soul. He had other things to do with me than train me.”

Before Tamlin could get distracted by those alleged ‘other things’, I cut in again: “So Rhys had a female with the power of all the seven courts under his roof, and didn’t train your powers?” I snorted. “Doesn’t sound much like Rhys, if you ask me.”

Feyre glared.

“He did use my powers,” she amended quickly, making herself sound pained. “But I don’t remember. He trained _himself_ in using them. I don’t know how he did it.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “And that makes me not want to access my magic for a while, anyway. Just some physical training would be fine. My bow is the only weapon I can use, after all.”

Tamlin nodded. “Lucien, would you take her to the training grounds later?”

“Me?” I started in alarm.

“Unless you want to wait for tomorrow,” he continued, turning to her and completely ignoring my protest. “I’m afraid I’m busy today.”

“Oh, no, Lucien is fine,” she replied brightly. “I hadn’t imagined you would give in to my request so easily. Thank you, Tamlin.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” his countered darkly. “I made mistakes, Feyre. I’m not going to make the same ones twice.”

Why would he, when he had so many new mistakes to choose from?

A flicker of something dark washed across Feyre’s face, but she checked herself quickly. “Training with Lucien it is, then.”

I groaned inwardly. I was so not looking forward to this.

***

I could feel Feyre’s eyes on me as I plucked a short sword off the rack at random. Turning my back to her while we were surrounded by weapons felt exceedingly foolish. It was the first time the two of us were alone together – the first time Tamlin had brought himself to let her out of his sight at all.

I stepped away from the rack and left her no time to prepare before I shoved the sword into her hands. She received it with the ease of someone familiar with weapons before her grip on it turned awkward.

“Thank you,” she said pointedly – as if reminding me to be civil.

We made our way to a stretch of open grass behind the manor in a tense silence.

Tamlin had allowed her to go public with her intention to train, but I’d made sure the spot wasn’t visible from the manor windows. Our High Lord might be surprised to find that my support for her training efforts had somewhat changed.

We faced each other on the grass like opponents.

“So,” she said wryly, when I made no attempt to offer any sword-fighting lore. “What do I do with it?” She gestured towards the blade, as if she’d never seen one before.

Stiffly, I demonstrated how to hold the sword correctly. She followed my instruction with ease.

Then I grabbed my own sword, made two steps away from her and pivoted, catching her unawares with a slash at about waist level. She gave a shriek, ripping her sword up so inexpertly that she appeared to nearly twist her wrist. Her feet, however, were planted firmly on the ground, knees bent, rearmost foot angled outwards.

There was a muted _pling_ of metal on metal; my blow had already slowed to a near stand-still when our blades connected. We froze.

“Good reactions,” I commented.

Feyre gave my sword an angry shove. “Are you insane?” she hissed. “You’re not here to test my reflexes. You’re meant to teach me how to fight. I wasn’t aware that attacking me out of the blue was part of that.”

“Well, Feyre, it’s fighting. My style happens to be particularly dirty.” Without further warning, I whirled past her, wresting the sword from her hands as I passed, and unbalanced her to send her flying towards the ground. She did nothing to avoid my attack, but the way she hit the ground was smooth, rolling expertly to avoid injuring herself.

Glaring up at me from the ground, the spark in her eyes was now downright murderous. She picked herself up, slowly, and faced me once again. Her expression, her whole demeanor – so dark and so fiery – made me go back to that realization I’d made back when I’d seen her at her fiercest: I was afraid of her. 

My powers were scarce and ever dwindling, hers were bottomless. She was able to end my life with a snap of her fingers if she wanted to do so. She probably did not value my life for anything but the fact that I was her sister’s mate.

 “What. Are. You. Doing?” She spat the words out from between her teeth.

I was afraid of her, but I would stand my ground. “I’m not going to train you.”

“You what?”

My voice, oddly devoid of any snark, sounded pathetic even to myself. “Why would I teach you anything about fighting when you’re already capable of ripping out my throat in fifty different ways? I needed to assess your skill level. Maybe that’ll prepare me for the next time you try to kill me.” It very certainly would not.

When she didn’t immediately reply, I almost readied myself to experience a little more than I had bargained for of her powers. But she seemed to have a better grip on her magic that she used to: no talons appeared on her hands. No fires broke out, no shadows gathered around her. Her magical energy did not explode outwards and drive into me like lightning.

It felt anticlimactic when she went back to a very calm stance.  “I’m not sure Tamlin will be pleased with how our sparing session turned out.”

“I can share my observations with Tamlin, then.”

She paused. It took me a while to understand why: I had made it clear that I was going to keep her skills from Tamlin.

Whatever that meant – I wasn’t even sure myself – it definitely meant something to her, my defying him.

She picked up her weapon, but let it hang limply at her side. Once again, we silently sized each other up.

“I’m hungry,” she said then. “Let’s go to dinner.”

I would accept whatever temporary truce that implied.


	3. Ashamed

 We settled into some kind of mute dance, Feyre and I, watching each other, feeling each other out, but never betraying anything, never letting the other know what we really knew and thought.

I felt her gaze follow me around, felt her eyes bore into me as I ate with my head bowed over my plate, straightened my shoulders when her piercing gaze caught a downcast moment, eased the anguish off my face every morning and put on a grin for show.

She smiled and laughed and simpered, lulling Tamlin into the false security of their travesty of a love. The pain it cost her became evident only in the tiniest of twitches, the speed with which her smile faded when he turned, the seconds I caught her alone in the garden watching the night sky.

Those were the moments that bespoke her true condition – reminded me that she and I both had left a mate behind in Hybern. If the silent pull that had my thoughts repeatedly spin in circles around the mental picture of Elain was any indication, her torments at the separation must be unfathomable. Unlike me, she knew and loved her mate, and – I was sure – had accepted the bond and cemented it.

Maybe this was why, while we hadn’t exactly sought out each other’s company, we had recently managed to exchange words that were not dripping poison. Maybe like me, she had lost the spark of energy it took to be at each other’s throats all the time. The constant urge for vigilance was taking a toll on me, the tight jumpiness making me jerk from what little sleep got. My shield of humor and snark cost me more effort than centuries of practice should permit.

But Feyre never relented, never slacked. She never missed the blankness in my eyes when memories held me in thrall, my involuntary winces when Tamlin’s magic threatened to flare up, my frozen stillness whenever her sister’s name fell. She seemed to have a never-ending supply of energy in spite of her own sorrows.

And that, sometimes, made me wonder whether she was simply giving me a break for the sake of it.

Not once in the weeks she’d been back had I been able to catch her in the act of betrayal. Not one message sent to the enemy, not one foot out of place, not one word out of order.

More even than I avoided Feyre, I avoided private conversations with Tamlin by all means. His attention was on Feyre during meals, and keeping busy didn’t prove difficult, considering the amount of work the last months had left us with. But there was no escaping him forever, and when he summoned me to his study, I went in resignation.

I entered the room to see Tamlin rolling up a few large pieces of parchment. A closer investigation revealed that they were maps. Spring Court maps.

“I’m going to need you to bring those over,” he informed me without preamble.

I blinked.

“My end of the bargain includes granting Hybern free passage through Spring Court territory. Letting them know the way is part of that. I need you to convey them over to Hybern.”

Dread zinged through me at the thought of entering these poisoned lands again. This deal and my involvement in it made me nauseous. I wanted no part in destroying our court. 

But weariness had long since quelled my resistance.

“When do you want me to leave?”

“Three days’ time. I want this thing over with.”

Over with. Cauldron, I wanted things to be over with. I wanted everything to be over with. But that?

“Over with?” I repeated dully. “This is just going to start it.”

“It was necessary,” Tamlin growled, the familiar tang of uncontrolled, feral magic radiating from him. It would unload upon me if I wasn’t careful. And yet I couldn’t stay silent.

“What are we going to do about the villages?”

“The villages?”

My skin tingled in anticipation of receiving the blast. “An army is going to pass by them. We need to tell them to ready some defenses.”

“Hybern will instruct his armies not to touch anything on Spring Court lands. There is no need to warn them. Warning them would make the appearance of war coming to our lands. This is not the case.”

“The appearance of…” In truth, I wasn’t even surprised by this attitude, not really. He had become increasingly adept at suppressing any notion that what he was doing might be very, very wrong. “Tamlin, _Hybern’s army_ is going to pass by mere miles from them, possibly even entering the villages for supplies. Are you telling me you trust Hybern soldiers not to seize an opportunity when one arises?”

His growl deepened. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that masses of monsters aren’t exactly the most reliable when it comes to holding up to a contract their king and master made. They are going to pillage, Tamlin. They are going to steal and rape and murder. What’s going to stop them? The villages need to be pre-“

A shock of magic hit me. It barreled into me like a wave crashing on the shores of a stormy sea. My skin started burning with it as my body tried to shield itself against more power than it could possibly absorb. I couldn’t breathe… I felt blind and deaf, even though I could still see the study, could still hear Tamlin as he growled again at me.

“The King of Hybern and I have an agreement. I will see to keeping my end, and he will see to keeping his. There will be no threat to the villages.”

With that, he stormed out of the room.

He hadn’t meat to attack me, not really. Tamlin simply had too much raw power. It filled him to the brim, and sometimes, when his emotions ran high, he couldn’t keep it inside himself. The magic exploded out of him, and he could neither stop nor channel it.

But these outbursts hurt. It felt like the magic had taken possession of every nerve in my body and set them aflame. I couldn’t move, still couldn’t breathe, until the worst of it started to dissipate.

Then the lock-down on my limbs lifted, and I collapsed on the chair in front of Tamlin’s desk, gasping. There were tiny dots of light dancing in my vision. Through them, my gaze fell on the rolled up maps still lying ominously on the desk.

I’d have to bring them to Hybern. Hybern would know exactly where faeries gathered throughout the Spring Court, where we would be vulnerable.

 “Tamlin?”

Feyre’s voice.

I snapped up, trying to shake the lingering ache from my bones, and turned towards the desk in an effort to look occupied.

Feyre thought bad enough of me already. Having her witness my weakness would make it so much more embarrassing.

Again, her voice sounded, coming closer. “Tamlin?”

She pushed her head through the door.

“Oh… Hello.” She sounded sheepish, already about to withdraw. I almost started to relax when I realized she had lingered.

“Tamlin just left,” I said.

She still didn’t leave. Instead, she tentatively approached me – me and the open maps that were still sprawled underneath the ones destined for Hybern. I did nothing to stop her from getting a good look.

But she wasn’t interested in the table. She was looking at me.

“Are you all right?”

She must have smelled the magic in the air. My face had a traitorous habit of turning stark white at the merest provocation – she had figured out what had happened.

 “That’s none of your business,” I said harshly.

I expected her to rush out with a cutting reply, but she did the opposite. After a moment’s hesitation, she leaned against Tamlin’s desk, mere inches from where my hand was braced against the edge.

“What did you argue about?” she asked softly.

“It’s none of your business,” I snapped again.

If I’d trusted my legs, I would just have left. I couldn’t bear her seeing just how helpless I was in the wake of Tamlin’s outburst. But it always took a moment for the surge of magic to completely relinquish its hold on my limbs.  

“Those lands you’re allowing Hybern to wage war on,” she finally said, still quietly, but with a sharp edge. “They’re Elain’s homelands, too. Our father lives there still.”

“Maybe you should have considered that before you were flaunting your new allegiance with the Night Court in Tamlin’s face,” I lashed out, stung by her truth.   

“Are you saying this is my fault?”

“No. I’m saying you might have considered what your actions would mean for Tamlin.”

“Don’t you blame me for this.” More than anger, there was danger in her voice. “Don’t you dare pretend that I could have stopped this, when you were here all along, _helping_ Tamlin. You’re making this so easy for yourself, don’t you, Lucien?”

Her eyes locked into mine. They were deep, deep, unfathomable wells. I reinforced my mental shields and looked away.

“You just shift it all off to Tamlin, right? Nothing is your fault. You just did what your High Lord told you. Well, Lucien, there’s something you should know.”

I dimly noticed that now would truly be a moment to be afraid of her, but it was just too much of an effort. I obstinately looked anywhere but at her.

“Just because there’s someone higher up than you doesn’t mean you’re not responsible for your own actions. You can hide behind Tamlin all you want, but _your_ decisions are _yours_. Don’t forget that so easily.”

She held me a prisoner of her furious force, and I just stared ahead. In a display of controlled power, she spun and strolled back to the door. Almost out of the room, she turned back once more.

“Elain is a sweet spirit. Be careful you don’t end up making her ashamed of being mated with you.”

Through the flash of cold at her words and the residue of pain in my bones, it occurred to me that she might have lingered just to keep me company through that pain. And I had gone and botched it.

.....

Ashamed of being mated with me. My mate would be ashamed to me mated with me. She’d be ashamed to be mated with a weak soul like mine. My mate, ashamed of me.

Feyre’s words had the same effect on me as Tamlin’s blast of magic.

There’d been a time when I’d had the upper hand in our interactions; I was stronger, older, Fae. Now our roles had been reversed. I was the stronger one no more. The Night Court had changed her; Rhysand had changed her.

I had relocated to my own study, where I sat watching the pile of rolled-up maps like a nest of demon spawn. By handing those maps to the King of Hybern, I would give him the keys to our territories. Tamlin had made the bargain against my advice, against my dire warnings. Yet I had been there through every step of the way. Handing over the maps didn’t make me any more a part of this war than I already was.

The mortal realm… countless humans would fall prey to the carnage. Before Feyre, I knew I wouldn’t have cared much. Nameless, faceless mortals… weak, despicable humans…

But Feyre had never been weak. Her sister Nesta was certainly not weak, and as for Elain… She was surely not despicable.

I had long since determined that is was better for Elain to never acknowledge the bond. There was no reason for her to accept me as her mate, anyway.

Why, then, had Feyre made it sound as if it mattered what Elain felt for me? Why had she put it as if the chance of her accepting our bond was real?

I fought down that hope. Hope would be the end of me. One more shattered hope and I’d go to pieces along with it.

After a night even more sleepless than usual, I dragged myself down to the dining room feeling exhausted in both body and mind.

Feyre and Tamlin were already seated, immersed in conversation. Feyre even seemed genuinely interested for once.

“And the lakes? I’ve met those water-wraiths, but do more faeries dwell there? How populated are they?”

“There aren’t many inhabitants of the waters in Spring,” Tamlin answered. “The wraiths are greedy. They annihilate whatever rivals there are for food.”

Apparently, this was the first Feyre let me witness of her attempts to attain information about Spring Court matters.

“Couldn’t you establish a system to help them manage? Maybe they’d help you in return. Imagine them in battle. They’d be a force to be reckoned with.”

“Water-wraiths? I’ve never seen one use force except to eliminate a contender.”

Feyre changed topics so quickly I suspected she, in contrast, had seen one fight. It almost made me curious about the adventures of her Night Court time.

“I would love to see more of the Spring Court,” she announced. “I’ve only been as far away from the manor as a few hours’ ride. There must be so much more to it.”

I tensed.

It was a plea I’d heard too often. The same desperate appeal for freedom that almost-human, battered down Feyre had made, which I had never been able to grant, and which had almost ended up destroying her. 

“Then we should take a tour,” Tamlin replied calmly.

I willed my tense muscles to relax. This was not the past. Feyre’s tone was much lighter, and Tamlin no longer building her cage.

Feyre smiled. “The two of us together?”

Tamlin reached for her hand; she had by now learned not to flinch away. “The two of us – just the two of us. No sentries.”

No Lucien, hopefully.

Feyre turned to me, beaming. “Will you be okay here, all by yourself?”

“Will I be okay?” I smirked. “I’m already planning all the fun I’ll have without you. You two are insufferable bores.”

Her smile lost some of its splendor as her gaze hit my weariness-deadened eyes. “Don’t be a bother for Alis and the servants,” she continued in a strangely gentle voice.

I snorted. “How long are you planning to be off for, a few years?”

“Well, before that,” Tamlin said, “you have your own trip to prepare for, remember?”

“Really? Where are you going?” Feyre asked.

Tamlin and I exchanged a glance. “Court business,” he said curtly.

Feyre shrugged. “Well, I won’t keep you from it. I’m going to paint today.” A vigilant glint remained in her eyes, though.

“Good,” Tamlin said gruffly. “Nice to see that painting room put to use again.”

“I know. I couldn’t find the joy in it for a while, but I’m back at it.”

Relief flashed in Tamlin’s eyes. “I’m glad about that. I really am.” He shifted. “By the way. I once happened to stumble over one very interesting painting showing two pigs with a startling resemblance to Lucien and me…”

Feyre laughed, and they engaged in playful banter about the instance that had led to her painting us in such an unfavorable manner. I squirmed under Feyre’s intermittent scrutiny, and hurried my breakfast.

Until a presence pressed against my mind.

A claw in my head. Rhysand, Amarantha, they were here – there had only been one time I felt someone trying to breach my mental shield, and that was Rhysand, he was trying to get into my mind…

I had jumped up and was standing at the table, chair knocked back, chest heaving, absolute terror in my heart. The memory of those claws in my mind… The memories I had thrown in Rhys’ way, my most distracting memories, to shield Feyre’s name…

Tamlin and Feyre were staring at me in shock, Tamlin in surprise, Feyre looking guilty.

Feyre. I had thought she might be able to do this.

Feyre had done it. Feyre had infiltrated my mind, only Feyre – not Rhysand – not Amarantha – neither Rhys nor Amarantha were here.

“Lucien?” The tone in Tamlin’s voice said, ‘What the hell are you doing there?’

Feyre kept looking at me wide-eyed.

My heart was beating a frantic rhythm, so fast it felt as if it was going to jump out of my throat.

“I… I need to go,” I choked out. “To… the stables.”

It was not a good excuse, but when had Tamlin last cared about what was bugging me when I irrationally ran away from places.

I fled from the room, not even bothering to pick up my fallen chair. I rushed out, thinking of nothing but moving without knowing where. I paused a moment on the manor’s front steps, but it didn’t really matter where I went, anyway.

“What bit you this time?”

I had paused a moment too long. Alis had spotted me – and where she was, her two boys suddenly broke out of the bushes with joyful howls.

“Lucien?”

I tried to take a steadying breath.

“Why don’t you come over here for a moment?”

She was sitting in her usual spot, a bench in the manor’s shade. My nerves felt frayed; I didn’t trust my voice to speak yet. Rigidly, I crossed the few steps between us and took a seat beside her.

The boys were brandishing crude swords made from branches they had tied in a cross. Their laughter permeated the air in the same way the ubiquitous sent of roses did as they chased each other around and through the flower beds.

I grasped the bench’s edges in a vicelike grip to stop my hands from trembling. It didn’t stop Alis’ attention from flitting over the dents I was making in the wood.

“You let Feyre rile you up much too easily,” she said softly.

Breathe in. “And here I thought you were the one who encouraged her to pick on me.”

She chuckled. “I told her not to cower. I’m telling you not to cower now.”

“I’m not cowering from Feyre!” I said indignantly.

Alis merely snorted, but her mirth didn’t last. “Feyre shouldn’t be here.”

“What? When did she stop being your precious darling?”

A sigh so large I wouldn’t think fit into the small women escaped her. “She didn’t. But she shouldn’t be here.”

Even in my current low, it wasn’t often that I was struck speechless. Alis shook her head at me. “Come on, Lucien, you don’t think I’m stupid, do you? Tamlin might be blind enough not to see it, but I’m not, and neither are you. The Night Court was good for her. She loved Tamlin once, but no more.  Whatever her reasons for staying – she belongs somewhere else.”

I should have known Alis would see right through the act.

She had been there to see Feyre’s final breakdown – had allowed the Night Court woman to take her.  She hadn’t wanted to feign ignorance, had wanted to tell Tamlin that it was his own fault. In the end, it had been my shameless begging that she had persuaded her to lie, to say she hadn’t seen anything. I had not been, and I would never be, ready to see Tamlin take it out on Alis.

“Feyre has many reasons to take revenge,” Alis added sadly.

Would it hurt Alis to see Feyre burn the Spring Court to the ground?

Jamy, the smaller of the boys, burst through from between two bushes with a yowl, his brother hard on his heels. Brade, I recalled, was the elder boy’s name.

“You hit me!” Jamy screamed.

“We’re playing warrior, you ninny, of course I hit you!” his brother replied.

“You’re only playing, boys, so don’t hit each other for real,” Alis intervened.

I hadn’t seen much of the children during the last months. I had been away a lot, and when I was here – and Tamlin was here – Alis had been careful not to let them get in the way of Tamlin’s wrath. So they had effectively been hidden from me as well.

“But I want to play properly! How do you want to play warrior if you’re not going to hit anything?” Brade complained.

“Hit yourself, then,” the smaller boy replied. “Don’t hit me. Or hit _him_ ,” the child said, pointing at me, “he’ll hit you back.”

I blinked in alarm. “I’m not going to hit your children,” I hurried to inform to Alis.

Brade, however, was eyeing me curiously. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Ah…” I looked to Alis uncertainly. As far as I knew, she didn’t think much about the High Fae way of confronting children with death and murder from a very early age.  She took pity on me.

“I would be careful with this one,” she said conspiratorially. “I have heard some tales of children mysteriously disappearing around him.”

Both boys now gaped at me. I gaped at Alis. Then Brade tentatively said: “You’re lying.”

“Me, lying?” Alis cried in an exaggerated way.

“It’s not true.” Her light tone had emboldened the boy.” You said not to cross the grumpy one, but the one-eyed one was okay.”

“You said that if we could annoy him, we should,” piped up the smaller boy, encouraged by his brother’s daring.

“That’s what you said?” I murmured wryly. Alis didn’t even look slightly guilty.

“Where did your eye go?” Jamy screamed, bold enough to approach me now.

“Shut up, he won’t tell us,” Brade hushed, coming even closer so as not to appear any less brave than his little brother. “It was something terrible and we’re not meant to know.”

“But I want to know!” Jamy squealed, no longer taking leads from his brother. And, before I knew it, I had a little boy in my lap, who pawed at me with dusty hands and brought his face a hair’s breadth to mine in an effort to examine my metal eye.

“What did you fight?” he asked me seriously. “A human?” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “A monster?”

“Um…” Jamy did not have any qualms at closeness, much in opposite to me. A weird strangled noise sounded next to me. “You could call it a monster,” I said.

Maybe I wouldn’t tell the boy that I hadn’t, strictly speaking, fought it, but had merely been stupid enough to mouth up to it.

The child’s eyes widened.

“He’s lying, too,” the elder boy cut in. “People die when they fight monsters!”

“I fought many monsters, and I killed many of them!” I defended myself, for real this time.

“Prove it,” Brade challenged – and extended his little toy sword to me.

Another snort made me glance at Alis. She was shaking with barely contained laughter.

Oh, no. I would not be made a fool of by two little boys.

In a swift motion, I transferred Jamy from my lap to hers, plucked the toy sword from Brade’s hand, picked the boy up from the ground and deposited him on one of the bush stags. He sank into the foliage, and the living tribute to the Spring Court’s symbol animal would never look as spruce as before, which was a definite improvement.

As soon as one boy sat, slightly dazed at where he’d landed himself, the second one clung to my leg: “Me too, me too!”

We had enough stags, so the little one went up one, too. From his vantage point, he brandished his toy sword, and it kind of felt natural to hold up the one I was clutching for him to clang against. Then Brade wanted his sword back, so I grabbed a stick and charged them. They were squealing with infectious laughter, and had me so immersed in the game that I didn’t even care when Feyre joined Alis on the spot I’d vacated on the bench.

The boys had almost screamed themselves tired when I noticed that Alis was now watching me in a very different way. The wrinkles had faded from the corners of her eyes, to be replaced by a softer look.

Pity was staring out at me now.

Feyre had told her about the mating bond.

What else but pity could she feel for me, who had once again managed to let luck turn to misery? How I must look to her, too cowardly even to speak of my mate.

The smile had slipped from my face like a slug.

I clung to my composure long enough to lift the children off the brush, and stalked inside, chased and haunted by their disappointed cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, the boys are actually at least fifty years old! Probably older than the way I wrote them, which is supposed to be the rough equivalent of a five-year-old and an eight-year-old human. But the cuteness factor! Also, they won't reach maturity until they're seventy-five, and they're still described as being small, not fully grown yet. Can we just assume that faerie children age very slowly at first, and speed up the process in the last few years before maturity? :)
> 
> I'd love to know what you think about this chapter! You'd make me very happy if you take the time to leave a comment!


	4. Your Own Decision

 

I didn’t know how many times I had wished for a less active mind.

Feyre used to have nightmares, violent nightmares that had her wake up crying and shaking. If she still had them, after her time with Rhys, she endured them more silently now.

I rarely had nightmares. I never had dreams. If I slept, it was in oblivion.

But sleep did not come to a mind in riot.

It had taken me years to stop replaying Isa’s death in my head. I had revisited the memory, again and again, searching for that one detail I had missed, that one action that would have saved her. Every time I didn’t find it new proof of my uselessness. Every time I saw her die taking a new bite from my soul.

Now the horrors had changed. A slender girl, sobbing in fear as she was dragged to what she considered her doom. Feyre’s gaunt eyes pleading me to help. Feyre’s eyes fiery, daring me to move. An arrow with my name on it. _Your mate will be ashamed of you._

Over the centuries, I had become smarter. Whenever my thoughts strayed to memories that would pull me down into the abyss, I would move, find something to occupy myself with. I spend nights working on papers left over from the day. I haunted the nighttime manor, trained, ate, or even, on nights with particularly persistent pondering, ventured outside to have danger and darkness take my mind off things.

This last manner had become increasingly foolish the more filth prowled the lands and my magic diminished. I had only recently regained the habit.

Memories went by in an endless parade. The countless times I had yielded to Tamlin. Feyre’s angry words. Things that hadn’t even happened yet: the words Elain would use the day she’d tell me all her contempt for me. The way she would look at me when her home would be demolished by war and I’d be the one to blame for it.

When my heart grew so heavy that I was sure I knew what Tamlin’s heart of stone had felt like, I got up, shrugged into a crumpled tunic and went for distraction. 

I ended up in the kitchens, a place I grew more and more acquainted with; the likelihood of meeting any courtier High Fae there was refreshingly low. When I stayed up into the small hours, Alis sometimes joined me for her solitary breakfast. She rose insanely early, earlier even than all the rest of the staff.

What was more, I could make myself useful by sharpening the gigantic array of kitchen knives which constantly needed sharpening. The servants sometimes smiled at me for it, even though they had all long since reached the conclusion that I was crazy.

I leaned against the worn kitchen counters, letting the work lull me into peace with the monotonous sound of steel rasping over steel. My head had cleared enough to let me think of sleep again when the door quietly opened and it wasn’t Alis, but Feyre who tiptoed in.

I had marveled at how composed she was during the day. I’d almost assumed she had grown so strong that nothing could unsettle her anymore.

It took one look at her to know that that had been wrong.

Her grip on her facial expressions untightened now that she thought herself alone, all her sorrows were painted there. There was a lost look that I could relate to only too well. Weeks and weeks of pretending to be someone she no longer was had left their shadow of exhaustion. She seemed so lost in thought that she didn’t even see me as she closed the door behind her.

My hands had stilled. The door clicked shut, and she turned. A small “Oh,” escaped her, and a frown settled on her face as she took me in.

Her whisper rang loudly in the silent kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

I threw a pointed look at the tools in my hand.

Silence enfolded the two of us. When I glanced up, I found Feyre studying me.

“You’ve seen better days,” she said softly.

My jaw clenched. I had, while she was strong and healthy. A far cry from her sorry state under Tamlin’s thumb.

“You know, when I used to have nightmares…”

“I don’t care about your nightmares,” I instantly staved her off.

She was still studying me intently.

“What do you want?” I snapped. Cauldron, why was I so fast to be on the defensive these days?

I was glad when Feyre wouldn’t be baited. The dead of the night felt too peaceful to disturb by arguing.

“Lucien.”

My hands tightened around the tools at the gentleness in her voice.

“I was angry and said some things that I think cut deeper than I wanted them to.  I’m sorry for that.”

It felt suffocating, her concern, uncomfortably personal. In the Spring Court, where everyone had seen me return from my various trials in bloody pieces, it was a widely accepted fact that I was a haphazardly covered up mess. I was used to papering over the cracks. 

“And I’m sorry for today.”

“Really,” I rasped with a joyless smile. “You think the boundaries of my mind might be worth respecting?”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, unfazed. “And what I said about Elain…”

No. Please, no. Please please please just don’t bring her up.

“It was wrong. I don’t think she could think ill of anybody. Equal in all regards,” she said calmly.  “Elain and you… Curiously enough, I can imagine it.”

My breath hitched. Pressure started building up in me, battering against the inside of my skull with its request to be vented in a scream.

“She’s quiet. Talks only to the people she feels comfortable with. She never really wanted too much of the world touching her. She-“

“Stop,” I cut her off, my voice failing. “Stop telling me this.”

“Why?”

Because she couldn’t just come and break down the walls I’d build around the hope, because she couldn’t just say that there was a chance to get to know her, because being told details of my unreachable mate’s life would only make it so much worse.

“She should be human. We were never meant to meet this way. We should never have mated.”

“But you did. Lucien, you did.”

.....

I spent the day hunting, dismissing more urgent tasks to be alone for a few hours. I had just handed my mare back to the stable hands and made my way to the manor when Tamlin and Feyre emerged from the gardens, hand in hand. Tamlin smiled a happy smile, yet it wasn’t the same smile he had worn once upon a time. Even his smile had been damaged, maybe beyond repair.  

I joined them for dinner, but excused myself as soon as I could, dodged Alis, who looked as if she wanted to talk, and went back to scowling at the maps still heaped on my desk.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I would have to take them to Hybern and hand all that knowledge over to the enemy.

Feyre had expected me to help her against Tamlin’s oppression. She was expecting me to rebel now, to defy Tamlin’s orders to assist the King of Hybern. How did she figure I’d do it? I had nothing on him in terms of magic and strength. Whatever gave her the idea that I could hold my own against him?

What would Elain think of it? Could I ever redeem myself for what I was allowing to happen to her homelands? Would she be proud of me for trying to help? Would she only regard it a necessary compensation for what I had already done? Would she want me to defy my High Lord? Would she even understand what it would mean for me?  Would she prefer that I die trying rather than stand idly by? If this war could be stopped, if I could play a part in mending what had been set into motion – even if I tried and failed – maybe then she wouldn’t look upon me with disgust.

But what use would it be if I just didn’t deliver the maps? Tamlin would send someone else, and I would lose his trust. There was nothing gained by it.

The villages, though…

With a sudden burst of energy, I unrolled one of the maps and flattened it against my desk. To reach the wall, the closest path from Hybern would lead their army past several villages, all defenseless farming settlements. There were a few larger towns that might shelter the inhabitants of the surrounding houses reasonably well, but there would be losses. Regardless of what Tamlin said, there would be losses.

I traced the areas Hybern’s army was most likely to cross on their way to the wall. They would avoid the small mountain range to the west, as well as most of the western forest, because it would impede their progress. They would follow the Hyra river southward… where they would have to make a long detour if they indeed avoided settlements. If they wouldn’t – which was much more likely – there were four villages in their way, which would be burned to the ground after the army had passed.

According to Feyre, Rhysand had long ago suspected Hybern’s intentions and meant to take measures against an oncoming war. Would Rhysand take up arms against Hybern directly? Or would they take down the Spring Court first, as the last bastion that stood between Hybern and the mortal realm, and provide one more barrier for Hybern to pass?

Either way, they would need time to come up with the resources and the plans. Considering that Hybern had probably already started rallying its armies, they’d be ready to start marching immediately. Taking the shortest route to the wall, they would reach it within a few weeks, two months at most. That didn’t leave nearly enough time for the Night Court to do whatever the Night Court would do.

I was holding the information that would point Hybern to the shortest route. If they didn’t know that way… say, had to go all the way around the western mountains, or even cross them… that would delay them by two weeks at least. If they weren’t aware that south of the Hyra river, the Wenin wound its way… they would follow the Hyra, needing the water supply. Another week.

The map sprawled before me, every nook and cranny of our lands worked out elaborately in paints very similar to the ones Feyre used. Over time, little symbols had been added as new towns emerged, old ones were abandoned or forest areas hewn down for timber. Tamlin himself had marked areas that were particularly infested with some kind of ilk as a warning not to pass through.

I stood in my study, maps in hands, hesitating... Then I dashed off – straight to Feyre’s painting room.

.....

I was in no way an artist, but several centuries of a lifetime and an endless need of lonesome nighttime activities had seen me try my hands at almost everything. There were four maps – one showed our side of the wall in little detail. That one was safe. Another one showed the area south of the mountain range. That one I would discard, because I wanted Hybern to steer clear of that area as a whole. That left two maps for me to … revise.

Rolls of blank canvas, paints, brushes, tools I had no idea how to use sat in orderly rows on tables and shelves in the art room. Although Feyre had claimed to have painted that day, I saw no evidence of it. I spread the first map on a table, and set to work, operating with a single-minded determination I hadn’t felt since… since I had had a lover, and had wanted to marry her.

I added a few miles to the mountain range, making it highly inconvenient for an army to take the southern route to pass them. I painted over the Wenin river, causing a large area to suddenly be without a secure supply of running water. The center of a forest became a haunt for various vicious monsters, and a few villages which presented too much allure for a looting host disappeared off the map entirely. The warning signs for the territory directly bordering the wall, where the army would likely be stationed, I either painted over or annotated as ‘eliminated’.

Sunrise was almost upon me by the time I finished. I spent the remaining time, during which my works dried, jotting down the altered make-up of the lands for myself – I would need to keep tabs on where I assumed the Hybern army to be – and returning the studio to the state it had been before my frantic forging.

Then I rolled up the newly minted Spring Court geography, and slipped back into my room moments before the first servants would get up to start their day. A bath removed the smell of fresh paint from my body, and my paint-spattered tunic went to the bottom of the bag I stashed the maps in.  

When I finally collapsed onto my bed, exhausted and sore and tired but with a vibrant sense of exhilaration, my mind actually shut up for once, mercifully allowing me a few hours of rest at last. I drifted off, but it wasn’t the usual blessed oblivion that greeted me. I moved over Spring Court lands that looked different from what I knew them to be. I was on a hill, overlooking a field sloping down into the distance, and the sigh of grain stalks whispered all around me. Plains of soft yellow undulated in a gentle breeze, carrying with it the murmur of my former Autumn home. I stood at the peak, letting my gaze roam over the lands glowing golden in the light cast by a nurturing sun. All over the flank of the hill I’d crested, grain had yielded to a colorful sea of wildflowers, as though the wind had carried their seeds all the way from a Spring garden to brighten up these fields of corn with dots of blues and purple. Two girls were weaving through the blossoms, lowering their heads to catch a particularly alluring scent. Peals of laughter bloomed around them.

Their voices drew me towards them. I descended, brushing through the high grass, letting my palms savor the tickling of their stalks. The noise of it swishing in my wake drowned out the girls’ voices, and the slope seemed longer, my descent stretching into hours. I was afraid the girls would no longer be there by the time I arrived. 

Then I alighted on a soft earthy path, and a figure approached me, her gait flowing and ethereal. Her translucent wings were sheets of diamond, catching the sunlight to glint like a raindrop. They outshone every flower and the golden expanse of grain with ease, and left me so dazzled I could only stand and watch her advance.

Then she was directly before me, her small slim body almost touching mine, letting a current of energy flow between us, connecting us. Her face tilted up to me, at once revealing her freckled beauty, bright blue eyes and smiling mouth, and encompassing me in her warm glow. I raised a hand to touch her soft, birch-tree skin. The reflections from her wings sent little dots of light skittering over my arms and hands.

This was the face I had missed for centuries, Isa’s face, her skin, her marvelous wings and her sense of kindness. But the hurt of loss was gone now, sent away by the quiet joy of reunion. When my hand finally found her cheek, she was far away, the velvety feel of her skin on mine distant. Her smile was veiled by almost tangible rays of sunlight. As if the sun itself wanted her for its own.

Isa took my hand. Her eyes held a mischievous glint as she floated ahead, drawing me towards the second girl, who stood still between the flowers, turned our way. Her features appeared half human, half Fae to me. Her hair burned golden in the light, large brown eyes watching me expectantly. I had seen her no more than once, and yet she felt instantly familiar to me. Isa led me on until we stood face to face, and there relinquished my hand, gently but surely leaving me to stand by myself. There we were, the doe-eyed girl and I, drinking in each other’s presence. The world fell away around us. My long-dead love melted into the fragrant Spring and Autumn air, whilst we stood apart, and the earth stood still while there was nothing but her calm chestnut eyes. Underneath the golden glow, her hair was the color of fallen Autumn leaves.

Wakefulness tugged at my conscious, and though I tried to keep her with me, dream Elain gave me a gentle smile, and inexorably drifted away. Almost awake, I clung to her, preserving her picture, relishing the calm and steadiness that had settled over me.

If that were to be my one dream in a lifetime of dreamless sleep, I would consider myself lucky.

.....

I felt rested even though I’d barely slept. The calm remained with me as I told Feyre and Tamlin a brisk goodbye, retrieved the bag I’d prepared before, walked out of the gates and winnowed away.

I reemerged not far away, in a remote forest area of the Spring Court, and took out the paint-stained shirt and the superfluous map, evidence of an undertaking that would make me a renegade. The spark of magic I now reached for had lain dormant for a long while, but when I touched the grain of Autumn fire, it came more readily than all the other powers I had recently used. Parchment and cloth burst into flames, and as I watched the blaze reduce the proof of my defection to a pile of ashes, my calm turned into a steady sense of security.

I scattered the remains, bagged the rest of the maps, and winnowed on.


	5. The Renegade

Tamlin or Rhysand would have made it all the way to Hybern in one go; with some training, perhaps so would Feyre one day. I would have to make some stops on the way; my powers had never been enough to winnow long ways, and I was glad if I managed to fold space at all these days. This time, I didn’t mind the brief visits to the more remote areas of Spring that I passed on the way. Every time I stepped out of the winnowing darkness, a different part of the court greeted me – with some plants that grew only there, or a greenness of the leaves not found anywhere else. The feel of peace that united the lands might be deceiving, but it was there nonetheless, and I lingered for a moment longer than my magic needed to recuperate. Today, though - maybe it was my current mood that made me perceive the lands differently – some flowers seemed to have lost a bit of the perpetual bloom of Spring; there were places that looked unusually lackluster. 

When I finally stood at the western sea shore, I gave myself a longer break. I wouldn’t enter exhausted and with my powers spent.

The marvel that was the endless sea – an infinite expanse of water, a flat sheet of blue like today, or in broiling turmoil – always reminded me of a faerie’s life. Too long, too bland, and too unpredictable. Calm on the surface, but with creatures lurking in its crevices that one’s most fearful nightmares wouldn’t dream up. In storm and thunder, but unmoved in its deepest depths but by those creatures that prowled the unseen darkness.

The longer I looked at it, the vaster it appeared, drowning out the horizon itself; our lands were so insignificant compared to the ocean. But I knew it wasn’t endless. I knew that only one winnowing away, Hybern lurked within these waters, a giant hostile island intent upon conquering the world.

Normally, I wouldn’t be able to simply winnow over the borders separating Hybern from Prythian. Especially now that the King had the Cauldron to boost his powers, the wards around his lands were immeasurably strong. A High Lord might be able to breach them – I would smash against an invisible wall within the dark nothing that was the winnowing space, like a bird breaking its neck against a too-clean window pane, if Hybern had not made special arrangements in its wards to allow both Tamlin and me to pass through. As soon as the bargain dealings were finished, the wards would bar our way as well, but as yet, I could winnow over the borders undisturbed.

I took a last deep breath of clean, warm Spring Court air, and I folded into space. My next inhale pulled cold, salty air into my lungs, coating my tongue with the taste of dust and pushing all warmth out of my body. The bone-white castle loomed over me, cold, twisted, sickening even to behold. I wanted nothing more than to turn and run.

The castle had no surrounding court of gardens or stables or anything to disrupt its forbidding front. To either side of the walls, steep cliffs arose, crested by barren plains. The only Fae I could see were the two heavily armed sentinels standing at the base of the cold white fortress wall. Either the King had excellent means of hiding his safety measures, or he was so powerful that he considered any more guards to be dispensable.

Clutching my cargo with slickening hands, I approached an unremarkable wooden door set next to towering metal gates. Those gates would grind open for armies to march out, or for the King himself to exit in grand style. I, born a High Lord’s son and degraded to little more than a servant, would take the staff and solicitors’ door.

The guards’ features became more hewn out the closer my steps brought me to the door. Two sets of stony faces peered out of their royal uniforms, unmoving statues displaying the Hybern coat of arms. They followed me with their eyes, but neither of them exhibited any kind of reaction at my presence. I halted briefly before them, expecting them to challenge me, request that I lay down my weapons before entering the castle. They didn’t. Another display of the King’s powers: I did not pose a threat, regardless of the weaponry I wore.

I advanced, passed by mere inches beside them to lay my hand on the cold brass handle. The door admitted me into the castle – it felt as though the castle had trapped me inside, like a spider would trap a fly.

A narrow hallway led onwards, one I had crossed before, with Tamlin, when we had come here to forge this terrible bargain in the first place. The stone walls pressed in on me on either side, stone walls as hard as my mental shield needed to be: rock-solid, firmer even than required for Feyre. Feyre had breached my mental walls – anyone employed by the King of Hybern would get in with equal ease. My shield was unlikely to stop that. If anyone seriously tried to look into my mind, they’d find all of my betrayal there.

But the wall in my mind wasn’t to stop a daemati from entering. The King of Hybern would expect to glean little in my mind that Tamlin wouldn’t freely give him. No, my mental shields were meant to keep myself in – stop myself from fraying, stop my fear from leaking out.

“Look here,” murmured a voice of my nightmares. “The lapdog comes to fetch.”

The stone hallway had spit me out into a drab chamber which perfectly befit its only occupant: I was facing Jurian’s leering death mask of a face.

He was human, puny when faced with even a weak High Fae’s might. It was a sign of my weakness that I had to try hard not to feel cowed by him. But the madness that shone out of his eyes… it wasn’t of this world. What he had endured while he hadn’t even properly lived was inconceivable, and a part of me pitied him for it. But it had made him what he was: pure crazed evil with a learned taste for cruelty in Amarantha’s fashion.

Without wasting further words on me, Jurian extended his open palm.

“The bargain is with the King of Hybern,” I countered. Centuries of training now allowed me to keep my voice steady and even display a slight sneer. “Not with you. So the King of Hybern will receive this. Not you.”

The madness in his eyes glinted furiously, but the human stayed calm. “Oh,” he crooned. “You really want to meet my master – without Tamlin here to hide behind? Are you sure you’re feeling up to that?”

I bit back on a reply, but suddenly – Cauldron knew why my mind chose this precise moment to let the memory surface, this precise moment when I needed my wits about me more than ever – suddenly I remembered this brief moment, during that horrible stand-down with Feyre’s sisters, when I’d been able to shake the Kings bonds to go to Elain…

It had been mere chance. My powers were diminutive in comparison to his. I would have to be very careful. Jurian was right in saying that I had never before been face to face with the King of Hybern without Tamlin present. I’d kept in the background then.

Jurian led me out of the chamber with a snide smirk. He expected the King to have some fun at my expense, or he would give me more trouble for speaking up to him.

The hallways didn’t get any more cheerful. The whole castle looked bare, as if the King and his court and family – if he had a family – had never really moved in. We entered another cheerless room, barely illuminated despite the several large windows set along the wall, which afforded a good view of a distant mountain rage previously barred from my sight by the looming cliffs. A large wooden table dominated the center. A jolt went through me as I realized that the King himself was sitting at it, head held high even as he looked down on diverse papers scattered all over the wooden surface. His garb was more that of a warrior than befitting a king. For Tamlin, he had at least made the effort to look regal.

His eyes swiveled towards me. “Are those the maps?” Not even an acknowledgement of my presence.

“Yes.”

As Jurian had done, he merely extended his hand and waited for me to oblige. I did. He pried the scrolls out of the canvas sack and uncoiled the first paper, then the second.

“Newly made. I take it these are the most up to date you have?”

“They are.”

Jurian must be disappointed in how irreverently he treated me – I didn’t even merit the slightest of taunts.  The King had always only barely respected Tamlin, and only for his power. I was nothing to him, too insignificant even to spare the words to mock me.

I was nothing to him. So much so, that he didn’t even notice when my gaze shifted from the questionably accurate Spring Court maps to the lists they partly covered. Supply listings: weaponry, provisions, tents… The numbers were enormous. A Fae army so large to invade the human lands?

I quickly looked up in time to meet the King’s eyes.

“They will suffice.”

That was my dismissal.

Jurian led me back out, and I didn’t hide my haste to be out of here. Especially as I had no intention of immediately being out of here.

Out of the castle, yes, but not out of Hybern. Wherever this sudden bout of courage – or should I call it folly? – was coming from, I was going to use it.

“How’s Feyre’s pretty sister doing?” I knew he sneered even though he didn’t turn his head; his velvety voice rebounded from the bare stone walls. “Oh, wait!” A small laugh. “She’s in the Night Court, enjoying the curtesy they show to pretty females there, isn’t she?”

No, she wasn’t, I told myself. Feyre wasn’t worried. Elain was not in peril.

“You do have extraordinarily bad luck when it comes to the ladies.”

She was safe, and I was safe within my own walls of adamant, because a tiny little piece of Elain was in my heart, and she helped protect me from the inside.  

“See you soon, Lucien,” Jurian said by means of good-bye. “I’ll be leading an army through your lands. It’s going to be fun.”

If Tamlin had been here to see the grin he was wearing, he soon wouldn’t have a face left to grin with.

The castle disgorged me on the empty, barren land, and under the sharp monitoring gaze of the motionless guards, I took the few steps necessary to get enough distance between me and the castle to winnow away.

To another part of Hybern. To the distant mountain range I had made out through the King’s study window, while the King himself had thought me too low and too loyal to be having suspicions about me. Maybe my reputation as Tamlin’s lapdog did have its uses.

The mountain was as barren as the surrounding land. There was little in the way of hiding places; this would have to be a fast reconnaissance. Also, what I’d perceived to be mountains from a distance were barely more than hills; they enclosed a narrow strip of land by the sea, shielded from view from the mainland. A perfect place to ready an army: sheltered, accessible, and within easy reach of the armada of ships that would bring the soldiers over the open sea.

Carefully, I walked towards a rocky ledge overlooking the valley beyond. While I edged towards the outcrop, I pulled my tunic up over my head; my red hair made me easily visible, and was too recognizable. From up here, I had a good vantage point and could easily overlook the hidden bay.

I almost dropped off the cliff when I looked into the valley.

The army was massive. Tents upon tents upon tents were set up in orderly rows up and down the valley almost as far as I could see. And I immediately gathered two things: One, this army was ready to go. As soon as the King had studied the layout of the Spring Court to his satisfaction, these masses would march. Two - the King of Hybern could not possible estimate this number to be necessary to break the wall and take the human lands. The mortal realm was unprepared, unsuspecting and had nothing to oppose faery forces with. No, this army was meant to conquer more than the mortal world.

The sheer size of the army also put me into a much more precarious situation than I had anticipated. They had expanded closer into the mountains than I had thought, which meant that I might be much nearer to an outpost than was good for me.

No sooner had I realized this, than a shout rang out not far below me. Dust swirled up within a stone’s throw of me, and three Hybern soldiers seemingly appeared out of nowhere to charge at me, crossbows at the ready.

Out of here. Quick.

I folded into space, reaching out as far as I could, trying to get as far away from this place as I possibly could in one go. A piercing pain shot through my side the moment I wrapped the dark nothing around me; but I was gone, darkness swirling around me. Then I stumbled out of the blackness and onto a red and brown forest ground, to be greeted by the crackling of dry leaves under my feet and the scent of rain in the air and the agony of an arrow sticking out of my lower ribcage.

Short and thick, heavy but sloppily fired. It must have bounced off a rib, for that explained that despite the pain, it hadn’t gone very deep. That was one realization. The other was that in my desperate winnowing, I had missed my intended destination and had landed in Autumn Court territory – it must have been nearer from where I had left Hybern.

I had to leave this court – now. Not even Hybern would be this dangerous for me in my current state. My magic would call out to its like – and alert my father and brothers as to my unannounced presence.

Which way was Spring? I didn’t give myself time to recover; the pain only got worse anyway. So I clenched my teeth, and tried to keep to my feet – I would have to cross the borders walking, not winnowing; they could detect my winnowing, but not my walking.

I couldn’t have missed the Spring Court by much; the border must be a few miles away at most. It took me a few steps to realize that although the bold hadn’t struck deep, it made walking – let alone running – unbearable agony. I knew it did more damage than I could afford, but I wrenched the ash wood out of my skin with a stifled scream, chucked it away, and dashed off, heading for the border, or where I calculated it to be, and it must have been the comforting presence of my home court, which had never ceased to allure me despite all that had happened there, that gave me the strength to reach the border, cross it, and winnow as far away into Spring Court territory as my powers would possibly allow.

I had no idea where I had transported myself to, but peaceful Spring copse surrounded me, and I collapsed on a ground padded by moss and the soft blades of young grass. There I lay, panting, pressing a hand against my chest without daring to inspect the wound.

A cresting wave of pain barreled into me and build up to screaming agony. For a moment, it was all I could do not to pass out. I was in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the barely inhabited area between the Courts of Spring and Autumn. I had to make it closer to the manor before I allowed my powers to give out. And then I would have to find a way to hide this wound from Tamlin, but I would think about that once I’d made it safely there.

With a groan, I pulled myself up and gathered enough strength to make it a little further; another peaceful wood surrounded me as I emerged as I had disappeared, crouched on the floor and trying to keep my blood in.

Not far enough. Again. Farmland this time, I was getting off course. Again. Forest. Again. I felt my grip on my magic slip away, the distances I winnowed growing shorter. Again. Again. Again. A clearing made of broken branches and crudely hacked-away stems.

This was it, not a mile from the manor. I couldn’t have made it an inch further than this, be it by magical means or otherwise. I let myself slump to the ground, leaking blood and struggling for breath.  

Over the vivid canopy of leaves, the sun went by, and I watched its progress, waiting for the wound to heal. Once again, I’d escaped Hybern. Cauldron knew what had possessed me to make this impromptu scouting trip, but the information I had gleaned was staggering. Not only would Hybern move much faster that I had anticipated – they were clearly attacking more than the mortal realm, which meant: us.

The more I tried to come to terms with this information, the more I realized that there was nothing I could do with it. I did not command an army. I could not counter a Hybern strike.

Even when I’d initially had the idea to buy some more time, that time had never been for me to use; what would I do with it? None of my actions made sense unless I was ready to admit one fact to myself:

I was doing this solely for the hope that Rhysand and the Night Court might devise a strategy to counter the King of Hybern.


	6. Down

It was getting late. Tamlin would wonder what took me so long. But the wound had barely healed, and was still bleeding, even though my magic should have mended it by now. The panicked winnowing must have drained me more than I'd thought.

There was no way I could hide the amount of blood on me. I'd have to take my chances with a phony story.

Weariness was bone deep in my body, but I made myself rise from the soft forest ground and wait out a bout of dizziness leaning against a tree. One look down my tunic told me that there really was nothing much I could do to tidy myself up; so instead, I ripped my clothes a little more than they already were, in an effort to make the tears look like the product of claws rather than an arrow, and slouched towards the manor.

Thankfully, there were no playing boys and no Alis this time. I made it inside and halfway up the stairs before I heard Tamlin's voice behind me.

"Ran into trouble?"

He was standing in the open doors, Feyre close behind him. They must just have returned from an evening walk through the gardens. Tamlin let his eyes rove over me once, not seeming particularly concerned, more worried that the mission might have gone wrong. Good – it meant that he assessed the wound to be minor and very recent, still bleeding only because my magic hadn't yet had time to heal it. He wouldn't suspect anything else.

Feyre's eyes, however, swiveled from the blood on my tunic to my face and back to my tunic. Chances were that I was traitorously pale again.

"I ran into a nest of Naga on the way home," I grumbled. "Again. I'm telling you, we need to clean out the woods, Tamlin. There are still so many of them, this is nothing short of an infestation."

"You did what you set out to do, though?"

"Yes."

"Do you need help dressing this?" asked Feyre.

"I'm perfectly able to see to my own healing, thank you very much," I snapped.

I trudged the rest of the way upstairs and raided the infirmary, and sorely regretted not having accepted Feyre's offer when I sat down in my room and bit down on a cloth as I cleaned and bandaged the hole in my body. After wrapping myself up, I washed the blood off my chest and hands and got into some clean clothes, and when I was halfway presentable, made my way downstairs again. Tamlin would expect a report tonight, and I'd be damned if I didn't at least get some dinner before being quizzed about everything Hybern-related. I hadn't eaten since breakfast – my own bad for having spent half the day bleeding out on a meadow.

Tamlin and Feyre were almost done by the time I arrived. I dropped down on my chair, grateful to sit, and loaded my plate with Feyre's gaze bearing heavily down on me. As soon as I took my first bite, I discovered that eating did not feel like such a good idea after all.

"What exactly did you set out to do, Lucien?" Feyre asked. "You were gone all day."

"Most of that hunting Naga," I lied again.

"And what did you do before that?"

I threw Tamlin a pointed stare. Let him explain this mess.

And he did, somewhat. "We still have some obligations to the King of Hybern to fulfil. What Lucien did today was part of that."

When Feyre looked back at me now, it was no longer with concern – but with disappointment.

I found myself wishing I could tell her I had defied Tamlin this time.

"Don't you think you should keep me in the loop where the business with Hybern is concerned?" she asked Tamlin quietly.

He froze. "Why?"

"Well, I seem to remember that part of that bargain was my involvement in whatever the King plans to do," Feyre continued, meeting Tamlin's eyes without blinking. "So I think I should know what it is I'm supposed to be involved in, don't you?"

"Feyre," Tamlin started, his tone taking this flatness he often got when talking to her. "I'm so sorry I involved you in this. You know it was the only way."

"I know," she replied smoothly. "And I'm glad you judged me able to contribute, Tamlin. But if I am to be of any use to the King, I need to know what's going on, and I need to train."

There was a veil in my vision that just wouldn't be blinked away. Sitting upright was proving to be more of a struggle than I'd anticipated, and eating was downright inconceivable.

"Lucien conveyed a set of Spring Court maps to Hybern," Tamlin was saying now. I must have spaced out for a few seconds, during which, apparently, Tamlin had very suddenly decided to finally stop shutting Feyre out. "We minimize the damage done to our lands if the armies are let through a sensible path. In order to arrange for this, the King needs to know the lands."

Feyre collected herself after a remarkably short appalled silence. "I see." She seemed to think for a moment. "How are we going to protect the villages?"

Tamlin frowned. "The King and I have an agreement. They will not harm the villages."

"But…" Feyre looked uncertain for a minute, and I didn't know whether it was for show or for real. It was a little hard to tell, frankly, seeing as it was getting increasingly difficult to focus on her face. "Shouldn't we be on the safe side there?" She turned to me, expecting support, a move of hers that I hated. Why would she still think my support mattered?

"I think we should prepare them," I grunted tightly. I was too busy trying not to keel over and fall off my chair to particularly care about my answer. I was so tired. My wound throbbed quietly away, but thankfully didn't bleed through the dressing. The picture of Rhys' friend and court-mate Azriel popped up in my mind – Hybern was known to have used poison on his enemies. Surely not every foot soldier would run around with poison on their ash arrows? I sorely wished I could get up and drag myself to bed, but I was fairly sure I wouldn't be able to stand up straight, and collapsing from a minor Naga wound would very likely give me away.

Feyre's gaze lingered on me a little too long.

"Tamlin, let's to upstairs," she said, right in the middle of a long lecture from him which I didn't get one word of. "I'm really tired."

He instantly agreed. For once, it was she interrupting the frequent arguments about her involvement in this and that, not him.

I gave them both what I hoped was a careless, lazy smile as they got up and wrapped their arms around each other. Tamlin hardly bothered to say good night, but Feyre… once again, I was sure she had realized something was up. She cast another glance back over her shoulder at me, but the fog in front of my eyes made it impossible to interpret her expression.

Finally, they were out the door. After another fruitless attempt to clear my vision and an equally futile intake of breath, I pushed my chair back and managed to stand without too much trouble. I was feeling lightheaded as hell, though. Nothing was more alluring than lying down and not getting up for a century or two.

It was only because I had lost a lot of blood. Just loss of blood, which a good night's sleep and magic would fix. No poison involved. Because, well, if ever I had the misfortune to be hit with a poisoned weapon, I would be doomed and very likely die, since I didn't know which kind of poison and what to do against it, but I was safe because this was just very normal exhaustion from too much magic spent and a long day and pain and blood loss. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I made sure there weren't too many servants out and about in the manor before I ventured up the stairs. I should have stayed up there in the first place – my earlier journey to my room had been much easier. Halfway up, Alis passed me on her way down. Her piercing once-over was eerily reminiscent of Feyre.

I reached my chambers, and didn't bother with undressing before I fell onto my bed. Neither worry nor pain kept me awake for even one second after I hit the mattress. I was asleep the same instant.

…..

It was the cold that woke me up. I was shivering, lying on top of the blankets because I hadn't bothered with them last night. They felt unreasonably clammy as I tried to pull them out from underneath my body with as little movement as possible. The light was gray and muted, telling me that it was still the early morning hours. My side hurt. My head felt fuzzy.

It was only because I hadn't had enough rest. There was nothing remotely worrisome about it.

I really wished for a drink of water, but that would have required me to get up and the idea of doing that was swiftly discarded as one lift of my head sent the whole room spinning. I needed to gather some strength in order to be presentable for breakfast.

With the firm intention of sleeping it all off in the next hours, I closed my eyes, and drifted into something that wasn't quite sleep.

…..

"Lucien?"

I could hear the voice, but my eyes were slow to open.

"Lucien?"

Rough skin met my cheek, a hand like tree bark scraping over my forehead.

I pried my eyes open, but at first saw only haze.

"Lucien?"

It was clearly Alis, and she was sounding more urgent with every time she said my name.

"What?" I managed to croak, confused. What was she doing here? Why couldn't I get my eyes to focus on her?

She sighed. "There goes my hope that you might only have had too much faery wine yesterday."

Yesterday. The arrow – Hybern – Tamlin couldn't know about this!

"What time is it?" I muttered, alarm tugging at the edges of my bleary consciousness.

"Afternoon," Alis said. "We got worried when you had yet to make an appearance by lunchtime."

"What?" I croaked again. I needed to show myself downstairs. If Tamlin realized I was more badly injured than I'd let on, he'd question my Naga story. I had to get up. She'd said 'we' got worried, who was 'we'?

"Lucien, you don't look-"

I worked myself up on an elbow, brought my legs over the bed – almost knocking Alis off in the process – and the world dissipated into the now familiar veil of grey. I was dimly aware that I'd folded in on myself, but didn't really register what happened between that and finding myself lying flat on the bed again. I was still in the middle of a losing battle against unconsciousness when I felt something cold enfold my face – it anchored me, steadied my awareness. The fog lifted to reveal Alis sitting next to me, holding a wet cloth to my face.

I had to blink a few times at that sight, even though I could see it more and more clearly now.

"What happened to you, Lucien?"

"Happened?" I repeated stupidly. "Nothing! I mean, I was attacked… by Naga-"

"You need this healed," she cut me off sternly. "So, unless you want me to go and fetch Tamlin to get a look at this this instant, you'd better cut the crap and tell me how you got this."

"No, no no, don't…" Okay, wait - concentrate. It was vital that I managed to convince Alis that I wasn't seriously injured. So I'd have to get my act together. "Don't call Tamlin," I said, making an effort not to slur the words. "Please."

Something told me that I wasn't conveying the assurance that I'd meant to. And Alis was starting to blur in my vision again.

Time dissolved then. I kept waking and trying to make sense of the world. But it all faded together, and whenever I opened my eyes, I no longer knew whether it had been seconds or hours that they had been closed. I went from cold to hot, the wound kept throbbing steadily, and sweat started to accumulate on my face and my body, and I tried to get it off me, but my hands didn't go the way I wanted them to, they were clumsy, and rough calloused fingers would slide into mine and bring my hands back on the blanket. Sometimes there was a shadow in the doorway, a shadow, but it moved, it wasn't always there. Feyre had dissolved into shadows, I'd seen it before. Was it her? But I still wasn't sure I could trust her – it was too early. She shouldn't be here.

It was getting harder and harder to get my eyes to open, but I had to try, this shadow in the doorway was making me nervous. My side hurt, and I wanted to claw at it, rip it out, and I couldn't lift my hands to it and was just digging into the blanket, and then there was another hand, a soft hand this time, it covered mine and held it, and then I lost this world and spiraled into a blackness that looked like it would never let me out.


	7. Healing

I jolted awake with the distinct impression that voices had woken me up, but I could hear none as I lay listening. The room was quiet and empty. The blankets covering me were so smooth that I must have slept very calmly, or else someone had come and smoothed them out.

Sitting up took some effort – I seemed to remember, though, that I hadn't been able to at all last time I'd tried. Slowly, I ran my fingers over the tunic covering my chest - the bandage around my ribs was still there, only the wound underneath it no longer troubled me.

If I hadn't still been feeling so shaky, I might almost be convinced that I had dreamed being sick. Everything looked clean and tidy – there even was a jug of water on the bedside table. Someone had always been here, I knew. I could remember several glimpses of Alis, and… Feyre?

Before I could get to the bottom of the riddle, the door opened and Alis herself shuffled in. She was carrying a small tray, which I watched her deposit on the bedside table before she sat down on the bed beside me and looked me over.

I was probably looking quite stupid gaping at her, but it was all I could do with my sluggish mind steadfastly refusing to provide a reason for her breezing into my room and fussing over me. Alis did not fuss. Least of all over me.

Then she started waggling a handful of flabby leaves in front of my face.

I blinked.

"Eat those," she said.

My head must have taken some fever damage, or else it had been emptied and stuffed with cotton during the night. Either way, it didn't supply me with the insightful comment I was used to having at hand, but with, "Hu?"

"Feyre got them for you. They help remove the poison."

"Feyre," I repeated.

"Yes, Feyre."

"Poison." Why, my quick-witted comebacks today.

"Yes, the poison," Alis confirmed patiently. "And when you're done, I've got some soup for you."

She shoved the leaves at me more insistently, and I reached for them with an almost steady hand to have them out of my face.

Alis got up and shuffled off to the bathroom, where she busied herself for a while. I merely had time for about two confused blinks before she returned, looked at me, and chuckled.

"Really, eat them. I forgot what they're called, but they helped."

I stuck one of the things into my mouth. It had a sharp sting to it, and jolted some of my wits back into place, so I remembered to chew before Alis had to remind me.

"Feyre also got Tamlin out of the house for the most time," Alis called over her shoulder while she bustled about opening some windows. "They're touring the northern court right now, and won't be back until tomorrow, so you'll have some more time to recuperate. Don't ask me how she convinced him to do this with her, I truly have no idea and I don't think I want to know."

Alis settled back on the edge of my bed and watched me gag on the dry leaves. Wordlessly, she handed me a glass of water.

"So… Tam didn't notice…?" I finally managed to say.

"Sadly." She scowled. "He noticed nothing."

"How long was I out?"

"The whole day yesterday and tonight."

I stayed silent as I took this in, her watchful gaze never leaving me. Then she pointed to the tray she'd brought in.

"Go on and eat. I'll have to see to my other tasks, but I'll come back later. Get some more rest, and you'll be fine by the time Feyre and Tamlin return."

I nodded dazedly, and she got up to leave. Somewhat belatedly, I realized that nursing idiot High Fae wannabe-rebels had probably not been part of her job description and that I now owed her some not so small amount of gratitude.

"Thank you," I blurted, with the distinct impression of not quite expressing myself adequately, but Alis looked back with a tiny snort and an amused twinkle in her eyes and slipped out of the door.

***

I spent the day sleeping, and the night sleeping, and come next morning, was able to go to the bathroom without holding on to the walls. It was midmorning when a cautious knock announced a visitor and Feyre ambled in.

"You don't look like a corpse anymore," she chimed. "That's a vast improvement."

"Feyre," I drawled – my knee-jerk ungraciousness turned back on again – "we both know that I look amazing even at the brink of death."

I'd been sitting on the bed when she entered, fully clothed and upright, but I found myself wishing for a more dignified position. Feyre, however, didn't seem to care one bit as she strode over and settled cross-legged at the foot of the bed.

"You have some explaining to do," she challenged.

I might have countered that the same was true for her, but she had just saved my life, so maybe a little lenience was in order. I settled for a noncommittal hum.

Feyre observed me for a while, her head held askew. "It seems that we have a common… well, not to say enemy, but…"

"We both have secrets from Tamlin," I finished for her.

"We do."

We were on unsteady grounds, and we both knew it.

"You went on a mission to Hybern, and returned with a poisoned arrow-wound. It was an arrow, wasn't it?" She gave a nod to where my wound was, now little more than a dull reminder of the pain it once emitted. "Tamlin sanctioned the mission, yet you don't want him to know you got hurt. Which he doesn't, by the way. But why are you keeping it from him?"

I tried to read her expression, but she'd become very adept at hiding her intent. "I might have done a little more in Hybern than what was sanctioned by Tamlin."

"And it's not hard do guess that Tamlin wouldn't approve."

"He wouldn't."

"And what does that mean exactly?"

"Feyre – "

"Oh no, no, you don't Feyre me. I've spent a long night looking for a bloodbane antidote for you, and I'd like to know why."

Well, excuse me for not instantly trusting the person who wants to kill me one day and saves my life the other. "You are aware of the knowledge I base my opinion of Rhysand and the Night Court on. You once shared that view. Now, apparently, it seems that I am vastly misinformed and missing the most central and obvious bit of knowledge. What it is I am not aware of?"

She smirked. "Oh, Lucien sweetheart, there are a ton of things which you are not aware of."

"And where would these things point me to?" Useless to ask how she'd expected me to make an unbiased decision when she was withholding vital information. There had been rumors of a secret city, one untouched by fifty years of misery under Amarantha…

Feyre turned more serious. "They would make you realize that sometimes, people do a lot so save what's dear to them."

"I knew that before." Only too well.

"Yes. But the difference is this: Some ruin the world for the ones they love. Some ruin themselves for the ones they love, so that there is a world for them to live in."

And some ruin the ones they love and ruin love itself.

"He was my friend." If she'd still been human, my voice wouldn't even have reached her ears. "Tamlin was my friend."

Slowly, she nodded. "I know. I loved him too, once."

I wanted to tell her how sorry I was, for everything that happened to her, for the way I watched her misery. Maybe telling her would end the fruitless cycles within my mind - racking my brain for something that might have been in my power to do for her – beating myself up over why I hadn't done it – concluding that I would have failed, anyway – finding something, anything, a way not to fail her –

I opened my mouth and nothing came out, and funnily enough, Feyre was doing similar exercises in impersonating a fish on dry land.

She recovered faster. "Well, you're still an insufferable swaggering imbecile of a High Fae and you better be glad to have me around to save your ass, and don't let it become a habit. And the next time you try to get me somewhere I don't want to be, that arrow will fly, make no mistake, and if you hadn't already, I would now ask you to kindly get your head out of your butt about following Tamlin's orders and start thinking for yourself, and also I want you to know that…" She stopped briefly to draw a breath, "I'm sorry… I'm sorry, too."

I opened my mouth again.

"And don't you even dare thinking that you'll get off with a simple thank-you," she added quickly. "I saved your life. You will forever be in my debt."

"Now that's a prospect I enjoy," I muttered. Instead of voicing all the apologies she no longer wanted to hear. Instead of asking for forgiveness that she had already given. "I'll show you," I said, then, speaking up. "My plans. I'll show you."

"Good," she said. "And now get your snark back. This sappy version of you is insufferable."

***

Tamlin really had no idea I'd spent the last two days almost dying. He seemed unaccountably happy – showing Feyre his lands had pleased him, I could feel it in the energy with which he told me about it. He cherished his lands and still he refused to protect it from an invading army – ruined for the one he loved.

I couldn't bring myself to see him as an enemy. But his deeds – they had become the deeds of an enemy.

I presented my hasty copy of the maps I'd given to Hybern in my self-made clearing the next day, the two of us having claimed to go on a hunt. She whistled when she saw what I'd done to the trees.

"You know, when Rhys and I committed to the bond, he battled his best friend for hours on end. You and Elain haven't even properly met yet, let alone started to really get down to business..."

To her credit, she tried to suppress the twinkle in her eyes when she saw my scowl. "Too soon to joke, I get it. Now show me this big secret of yours."

I took a moment to admire her new cheekiness as I flattened out the scrolls.

"It's a map." Feyre stated.

"Your powers of perception never cease to amaze me."

"Prick. This is a map. What are you showing me?"

"It's a map of my very own improved Spring Court."

She shot me a look that made me hurry on.

"I figured, if Hybern was convinced that these mountains go just a bit further than they actually go, like this… then would change his route, to take the army this way-" I traced the way with my finger. "-sparing this village, and this cluster, from having them in the vicinity. Then, this river… wouldn't it be more convenient if it actually flowed like this…"

"I get what you're doing there," Feyre said appreciatively. Then she frowned. "That was risky. If the King of Hybern had looked into your mind, you would be a pile of cinders on his castle floor by now."

I snorted. "Well, I've been trying not to feel insulted by it – he didn't look into my mind. He didn't suspect me of anything." Tamlin's obedient lapdog.

"Are you sure? Would you have felt it?"

"I felt it when you did it."

She didn't apologize.

"So you fed the King of Hybern false information. Where are you planning to go from here?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. I'm not the one commanding the armies. My hope was that maybe Rhysand had something to say about it."

Feyre's face fell. "He probably does. And I wish I knew what."

"You haven't communicated?"

"I haven't been able to contact him. I didn't manage to get one single message through to him. I still don't even know – "

She took a shuddering breath. With a jolt, I realized that she was – after all that she'd gone through, after all the trials she'd faced – for the very first time I could attest to it, Feyre was close to tears.

"I don't know what happened to Azriel, and to Cassian's wings, or if they even returned safely, I don't know about – whether the Night Court has been attacked – "

"Whether your secret city is still safe and secret, you mean," I corrected dryly.

"Well, it's not so secret anymore," she sniffed, and recovered her composure while launching into a tentative explanation as to how a city had been wiped off the face of the earth and why her mate had been posing as evil incarnate for several centuries past.

"He's a damn good actor, I'll give him that," I grumbled at the end. At least now I could make sense of his odd behavior during the final moments of the Amarantha nightmare.

"He's a damn good something else, too," Feyre countered with a vicious grin.

"Stop it right there. I'm going to assume you mean his fighting skills. And, hopefully, his shield-breaking, because he's going to need that. I know why you haven't been able to get any messages across."

Tamlin, I explained, had spent some times reinforcing the court shields when he'd been anticipating Feyre's return – or more precisely, anticipated the aftermath of Feyre's return. I didn't know the exact ways he had modified the shields, but it made sense that messages by magical means from our end would be obliterated, and messages from Rhys' end would be waylaid.

"That's going to be tricky," Feyre mused. "But I have confidence in your means of mischief."

Well, at least someone had some confidence in some part of me.

"On another matter," she continued. "How firm are your mental shields?"

So much for confidence.

"I have some training…" And my shields had been challenged a few times, but been spared the ultimate trial. I swallowed at the memory.

"Would you allow me to see for myself?"

I instantly tensed.

"Shielding your mind is crucial, Lucien," she added seriously. "If our enemies can glean all our plans just by taking a peek into your thoughts, our resistance isn't going to go far."

Allowing her to go daemati on me was straining our new and fragile trust. But she was right. "Go ahead, then."

I braced myself, and slammed up the best I had to offer in the way of mental shields. The first awareness of her presence at the outer edges of my mind brought a cold sweat to my face, even though I knew it was only her, knew she was benign. Her touch was careful, but nothing could dull the petrifying fear as my last and only refuge was pried open by an intruder's claws.

I focused on the feel of the sunlight on my skin, the breeze cooling off my sweaty forehead, clinging to in the present so as not to be dragged back in time to those other claws in my mind, not so friendly ones, claws that had pulled and scratched and threatened to pierce the innermost fabric of my being –

Feyre blinked as she disengaged from my mind. I pressed my shaking hands to my knees, glad that we were sitting down on solid ground.

"Liked what you saw?" I growled.

"I… If you mean the gaps the size of the manor door you leave in your shield, no, I did not like that."

I felt naked. Naked, exposed and humiliated.

"Then again," she continued cautiously, "you have a pretty effective way of making sure people don't linger…"

And stupid. So, so stupid. Weak, unmasked and stupid.

"Lucien…"

I leaped to my feet as if the lush grass had turned to poison snakes and bitten my butt.

"Oh, please," Feyre sighed behind me. "Cauldron knows where I would be now if Rhys hadn't had a constant window into my soul during my hard times. You might want to get used to the idea of sharing your thoughts. Remember? You've mated."

She was probably trying to lift my spirits, but thoughts of Elain didn't do that trick – they usually only served to remind me of the many ways in which I didn't deserve her.

"Come on," Feyre said, getting up. "Let's go hunt something. We'll need to back up all our lies."

***

Getting a message to Rhys was the first of our priorities. With my connections to spies and legit inhabitants of various other courts, this shouldn't have been too difficult; however, Tamlin had hitched the wards around the Spring Court to a previously inconceivable level, and nothing could go in or out undetected. In the end, I dispatched a scout with instructions to gather intel on the Night Court's alleged hidden city – right under Tamlin's nose, even with his knowledge. Rhysand would look at any captured Spring Court associate very closely, and very rigorously, and intrusively, and there was no chance the scout would end up anywhere but in Rhys' custody. It was a solution that left me uneasy, despite Feyre's assurance that he would be spared.

Before sending our messenger off, Feyre cornered him for a little conversation which surely left him doubting her sanity – she kept telling him that she needed to talk while doing nothing but that. Rhysand would be drawn towards the memory of Feyre when he sifted through his memories. He'd get the message the way it was intended: We need to talk to you.

"For a moment, I thought you were going to tell the poor guy that you loved him," I couldn't resist teasing her.

"If I were you," Feyre countered in a dangerously sweet voice, "I would refrain from making fun of anything Rhys-related."

I instantly sobered.

"Let's go train your shielding."

In the mood she was in? No way. "Such a generous offer, Feyre. But what about your winnowing?"

"I can winnow."

"How far?"

"Probably further than you."

"And why would you compare yourself to me of all people?"

"Because it makes me look so good."

"You are such a conceited –"

"You do not want to finish that sentence."

We started training each other. I kept feeling the pinpricks of her mental knifes trying to find purchase on the crumbly wall in my mind whenever she was close by. In return, I had her winnow us all over court, under cover of the 'hunting trips' we took whenever we could shake Tamlin. Further and further across the Spring Court we went, as Feyre's winnowing range gradually extended to the point where she could hop the both of us from one edge of the Spring lands to the other with ease. And her precision allowed us to land within a radius of less than a hundred miles.

In the course of our travels, we visited villages and towns all around, spreading the message that war was on the way. Glamoured to the point of total disguise, we entered village taverns and courts, and it felt like the ultimate betrayal to inform them that their High Lord was bringing war to the lands without seeing to his subjects' protection.

Those visits left me numb and devastated and perpetually unable to look Tamlin in the eye. I was sure the constant guilt and inner conflict would have me down on the ground where I'd started, if not for Feyre, who was with me every step of the way, returning Tamlin's serene smiles and reminding me that I was doing what was right for once – and for Alis, who one day approached us to tell us that the lesser fairy servants of the manor had unanimously declared themselves to be on our side. That not only made sneaky activity in and around the manor much easier and amplified our means of communication – it also told me that, indeed, I was betraying my one-time friend and High Lord for the right cause.

The only thing which did not progress as fast as we would have wished was the training of Feyre's other, manifold magical powers. We had no specific knowledge about the variety of them, and even when it came to using my own father's fire, my reluctance to use my inherent Autumn Court powers made me a horrible teacher. What little headway we made usually resulted in some remote parts of the Spring forest looking a little torched.

"You're a High Lord's son," Feyre suddenly announced one day while practicing. Being a natural at shielding, she didn't even break a sweat whilst I chucked increasingly bigger branches and heavier rocks for her to deflect. I wished I could produce a shield like that – it would have saved me from many an angry outburst of Tamlin's uncontrolled magic.

"Your powers of intelligence, Feyre. Really, they blow me away. Yes, I'm a High Lord's son."

"Shouldn't your powers be stronger?"

"Well, I've always been the weakling of the family," I said bluntly. This was one conversation I was not keen on having.

"Has there ever been a time when they were stronger?"

"Aren't yours sufficient for two?"

"Properly trained, I'm sure they are."

"That's settled, then."

"No it's not. Did you use to be stronger, before Amarantha?"

"Maybe long, long before."

"So you could become stronger again."

"Feyre – what are you getting at?"

She fidgeted slightly "Well, it's just that Alis once mentioned that there have been instances where… well, that magical powers can lie dormant or decrease if a Fae is…"

"A pitiful wreck of a person and a giant fool on top?" I ceased pelting her with stuff to glare at her. "I don't care if it is so, Feyre. I was never a strong magic user. I was never a contender for the Autumn Court, and I have never wanted to be."

"If you could get stronger, though – "

"I can't."

I didn't give her a chance to pursue this any further.

We waited, and we trained, and we warned. There was no message from Rhys, and Feyre was growing anxious. Then one day, our winnowing trips finally let us see what we'd been expecting for a while now: the vanguard of the Hybern army.

War was on the way.


	8. Spring Awakening

Well, war would have to wait. We had dinner to attend. 

Seven high-ranking High Fae and sentinels were gathered around the table as armies disembarked ships on the western shore. They raised their glasses and enjoyed a hearty meal as the beginning war took the lives of Spring Court fishermen who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They toasted to Feyre’s return while the first coastal towns had to test their hastily built defenses against battalions of the worst creatures Hybern had to offer.

The land was practically under attack, and the most powerful individuals in charge of Spring Court defense and politics were gathered around a table, eating dinner.

Feyre and I hadn’t even considered approaching any of them with plans of revolution. I knew these Fae. I’d worked for this court along with most of them for almost two centuries. A war would only serve as a welcome change in their long, dreary lives.

We’d had no word from Rhys, we hadn’t gotten nearly as far with the defense preparations as we’d have liked to be, and both of our training efforts had progressed, but not nearly enough. Listening to a room full of useless idiots badmouthing our only ally was pushing our patience to the limit.

“Well, Tamlin, now that Feyre is back, and the court has settled down,” said one of the more obnoxious specimens gathered around the table by the name of Rumin, “I’m sure you two will be… _active_ … in more than the rebuilding efforts, am I wrong?”

His right-hand neighbor snorted. “I’m sure those two have been _active._ All that food dear Lady Feyre is inhaling has to go somewhere.”

“Which means, brothers, enjoy Feyre’s shapely form as long as you can – it surely will not last,” another arrogant drawl answered.

Over the centuries, I had hardened against the constant malignant undercurrent that was so common amongst High Fae. It was in no way out of place to compete in hiding insults and insinuation in the cleverest ways possible, trading stabs under the guise of polished courtly banter. No one trusted anyone, and conversations were a battle of wits and will. 

Raucous laughter spread amongst the guests. Tamlin roared the loudest, and I stretched my lips into a grin.

“It was worth fighting a war to have the Lady Feyre grace our table, Tamlin.”

“She truly is a feast for the eye. And more,” said Iamron, who had joined the Court as a commanding sentinel, in a suggestive undertone.

“I would fight a war if that meant I could feast with more than just my eyes,” added Rumin shrewdly.    Another bout of laughter.

I tried to force down some food, looked up and met the wide-open eyes of a lesser-fairy servant girl.

“And I would fight another thousand wars,” bawled  Iamron, “If that meant showing Amarantha’s whore where his place is!”

The girl spilled some wine next to Tamlin’s cup. Her eyes locked into mine in a frantic attempt to convey a silent message.

“You surely proved that nicely, High Lord, that much is certain.”

I couldn’t read her panicked expression; the girl could linger no longer. She left the hall and me without a clue.

Feyre was strenuously looking between her plate and Tamlin’s face, too fixed on containing her rage at hearing her mate thus abused to notice anything. I started preparing an excuse to leave the table.

“The work’s not done yet,” Tamlin calmed his overzealous followers. “Hybern’s war will have to be contained, and – “

At this point, his attention shifted to the door, where a trembling sentinel had just entered.

“I said no disturbance,” he snapped flatly.

The male haltingly approached his chair, swallowed, and delivered his message.

“High Lord, there was a disturbance at the Summer Court borders. Word is, the… “

Tamlin rose. Now towering over the frightened messenger, he let out a wordless growl.

“ – of intruders. Word is of intruders.”

Tamlin didn’t miss a beat. “Get your weapons,” he snarled in my direction, and strode out of the dining room without looking back to see me follow.

The silence he left in his wake would turn into amused speculations as soon as I’d be out of hearing range.

I stood and cast a resigned smile around the table, finally, for a brief moment, catching Feyre’s eyes. As I made my way across the room, she rose as well, mumbling something about seeing Tam off.

So close to the sharp Fae ears, there was no way we could talk. But when I returned from retrieving my weapons, she was conferring with Tamlin at the manor doors. I heard the last fragments of their whispered good-bye; then Tamlin left and Feyre instantly seized the chance.

“If this has something to do with the Summer Court,” she whispered in a hurry, “be careful. The High Lord of Summer and I, we’re not in the best of terms currently.”

“What did you do to offend Tarquin of all people?” I hissed back. Then Tamlin threw us a look over his shoulders and I didn’t dare prolong our talk.

The last rays of the setting sun warmed me as I caught up to Tamlin, who barely looked at me before grabbing my shoulder – apparently we were going further than my powers allowed me to winnow. Darkness rolled over us.

We stepped out of the short journey through space to face what was definitely the strangest picture I had ever seen on these lands.

And I’d seen a few things here and there.

A few sentinels were gathered in one of the denser areas of the forest, where some of near-by Summer’s bloom had made the soft Spring woods tangled and thick. The scent of flowers was thicker than at the manor. Tamlin and I appeared behind the sentinels, outside of the rough circle they formed, all facing inwards, all pointing their swords towards the center, blocking their target from view. Then Tamlin and I stepped closer, and the target of the sentinels’ attention was revealed to be none other than the Lord of Night himself – Rhysand.

Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court and the picture of nonchalance, standing in the middle of a circle of very sharp blades, arms crossed, an irreverent smile gracing his face.

A jolt went through me, one that hit me every time I saw this High Fae and the power he radiated. I had tried, since Feyre vouched for him, to find anything that disproved the abysmal opinion I had held of him for centuries. Any little report of a kindness, any deed attesting for his character not being irredeemably spoiled, any proof that he wasn’t a monster. Only one instance came up, one moment shining out of two hundred years of bestiality: the way he had attacked Amarantha when Feyre lay dying. The way he’d thrown himself at her with his life at stake, when everyone believed him to be her staunchest ally.

My own ally told me he was a friend. Her word stood against centuries of conditioned fear, fear that had my heart racing the instant I saw him, every fiber of my being snapping to attention at the presence of a male who could erase me from this earth with a snap of his fingers.

I had a hard time not joining my blade to the circle.  

What was he doing here? Was this his reply to Feyre’s and my message? We moved heaven and hell to let him know we needed a secret way to talk, and he just showed up in the Spring Court? Just popped up in the middle of nowhere, and lured Tamlin right to him? How did he expect he could talk to Feyre this way?

Tamlin had bristled the instant he’d recognized his sworn foe.

“What are you doing here?”

Magic was powering up all around him. I hoped he managed to contain it better than he normally did. It would not be a good idea to attack Rhysand in a way as untamed as this. Tamlin was powerful, but Rhys?

“Oh, I just thought I’d swing by,” Rhys drawled. “How’s Feyre darling doing? Have you managed to turn her back into a walking skeleton yet?”

His eyes casually roved over me, seemingly unconcerned; I could see nothing but contempt in them.

His habitual airiness notwithstanding – something was wrong. Hardly discernible under his strong glamour and masked by his insouciant front, something was rotten. I narrowed my eyes, real and metal both.

Tired. He looked tired. Exhausted. As if he’d been in various heated and nonstop battles for weeks and had just stumbled out, involuntarily, into Spring Court lands.

But what battles could they have been? Had he joined the war this fast? Had there been battles in his court that had been kept secret from the rest of Prythian? And how bad must the state of things be for one of Prythian’s most powerful to spend himself like this?

And there was something else, something that made my attention swivel towards the thick underbrush directly behind Rhys… Lilacs were blooming in an abundant lushness the likes of which I hadn’t seen anywhere in the Spring Court recently. But there was nothing there…

Tamlin shoved two sentinels aside and drew himself up opposite Rhys. Rhys was surrounded by armed guards and facing Tamlin head on. Tension had my jaw lock so hard I didn’t know whether I’d be able to speak.

“You,” Tamlin growled, so low it was barely audible. “You took my love from me. You took Feyre and did unspeakable things to her. And now you come to my court – you come to my lands – and you expect to walk away from here?”

Rhys refused to play games with him. He just quirked an eyebrow as Tamlin held his stare, and gave a casual shrug. “Unspeakable things? But you just have to ask me. I’m more than ready to speak of my time with precious Feyre.”

His gaze slid over the sentinels again, towards me, and this time, his eyes met mine with more of an intent. Cauldron knew I did not enjoy a daemati prying into my head, but this time, I hoped he would. _What is your plan?_ I screamed with all my mind. But there was no presence, no raking talons to rip open my lowered shields.

And then his gaze moved on, capturing Tamlin once again.

“I see you upped the protection around your court. A wise decision. It was far too easy to stroll into your territory the last time I came to visit.”

Again, my gaze was drawn to something behind him. There was nothing, but that nothing made my heart beat faster. It was a really important nothing. I stared at it.

“You cannot winnow out,” Tamlin said. He seemed to have controlled his overbearing fury; he must expect Rhys to be firmly in his grasp in order to become so calm. “And you should not have been able to winnow in. How did you do it?”

“Afraid your shield won’t hold?” Rhys sneered.

My heart was beating faster, faster, and gave the very same silent tug I had felt the first – and only – time I had seen Elain, had felt the mating bond snap into the hole within my heart. 

Tamlin’s gaze was fixed on Rhys, never straying an inch from his mortal enemy.

“No,” he replied. “I would know if the shield hadn’t held. You did not winnow in yourself. How did you do it?”

Elain. Thinking of her name made me remember her wet and sobbing face as I had seen it last.

And then her real face was staring back at me, her brown doe eyes large and luminous – Elain was here, huddled in the unusually vibrant lilac in Rhys’ back, clinging to a second figure, glamoured, trying not to move and not to make a sound.

Elain. Nesta.

Oh, Cauldron, she was beautiful. She was even more beautiful than I had remembered her. Her eyes, magnificent though frightened, were wide open, fixed upon mine. Fear showed clearly on her face, but she looked like she had momentarily forgotten it, in the same way that I had forgotten where I was and what I was doing while her eyes were the only thing still existing in the world for me. We stared at each other, and we might have stared forever, had not Nesta given her a slight shove to snap her out of it, and had not Rhys, in this moment, spoken.

“I didn’t winnow,” he said. “I walked.”

And I realized that he, too, was looking at me. With force. He knew the glamour had no more hold on me.

There had been a glamour. Nesta and Elain were here, invisible to all Spring Court eyes but mine. What the hell were they doing here? Why, for the Cauldron’s power, had Rhys brought them here? Or had they tried to escape? To reach Feyre? Was Rhys not friendly to them, after all? Had Feyre lied all along? Did she maybe not care for her sisters at all?

But Elain had seen me. She could give me a sign. I swerved back to her while Tamlin remained entirely unaware that this situation had just become so much more complicated.

And Elain understood.

Slowly, very slowly, so as not to betray her and her sister’s presence, she shook her head. No, she said. Don’t tell Tamlin we’re here.

That was all I needed. She was my mate. Whatever had happened to lead them here, they needed a way out.

What was wrong with Rhys? Had he spent himself protecting them? Could his considerable power be exhausted like that?

“You did not walk in,” Tamlin growled. “The wards would not let you in.”

“Well,” Rhys countered, “Maybe you should check them again.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Tamlin replied, “Because you will neither walk nor winnow out of this court.”

“And you plan on keeping me here… how?” Rhys sounded as confident as ever. But if he could simply winnow all three of them out, why hadn’t he done it already? Why stay, expose the sisters to danger? Unless Rhys really could not winnow them out. Unless, for some reason, Rhys’ powers were exactly in the state he physically seemed to be in.

I didn’t need to know why. I needed to get them out.

Tamlin was still trying to stare him down, but Rhys would not let his gaze be captured. Once again, his eyes met mine. And this time, I did feel him trying to enter my mind. I shoved my walls down, left my mind wide open and unprotected –

_Get him and me away from them._

Instantly, he withdrew. I saw him sway where he stood. If his powers were down, then keeping up a glamour strong enough to fool Tamlin and at the same time leaving a message in my mind must be a further drain on his powers, one I wasn’t sure he could keep up much longer.

Tamlin growled. The metal stench of his magic started to fill the air, a smell I had come to hate through the countless times that it had snapped and lashed out at me. Claws sprang out of his fingers; he was seconds away from changing into his beast form. And if he was going to attack Rhys that way –

Rhys was powerful magically, but Tamlin would always win a physical fight. And with Rhys in this state, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Tamlin didn’t know that two newly made High Fae were crouching behind the enemy High Lord. His attack would be feral. He would plow Rhys over and leave him in bloody ribbons strewn all over the forest floor, and he would not even see Nesta and Elain’s shredded remains thrown in with Rhys’.

In the fraction of a second that I met Rhys’ eyes, this was what both of us realized. Never before had I seen undiluted fear in this mighty male’s eyes – it was what I was seeing now.

A flash of light. A rush of leaves as Tamlin charged, a bundle of muscle and teeth and claws, and I strained every fiber of magic I had left in my body, reached down to the deepest reserve of strength that might still remain within me, and threw it all out between him and my helpless mate.

Another flash of light. A howl, and a hoarse bellowed scream, and Tamlin’s several hundred pounds of mass rebounded in the middle of nothing, twisted in midair and landed back on the ground, perched again for the pounce.

Rhys stood at the same spot as before, chest heaving. I didn’t know whether he or I had shielded them.

He took a few careful steps forward. Away from the two huddled girls on the ground. They held each other. Elain had buried her face in Nesta’s chest, but Nesta had not budged. She was throwing furious glares at Tamlin, as if the spears shooting from her eyes could actually impale him.

I approached them, slowly. My heart was beating ever more wildly as it neared the cause of its alarm. As Rhys moved forward, it looked as if I circled him to corner him between Tamlin and me. Gradually, I took over the glamour. Only a few steps separated me from the girls. There was the small, almost imperceptible noise of metal sliding out of a sheath. Nesta had bared a dagger. At me.

She didn’t know I could see them. That I was going to help.

Breathing regularly was the hardest bit of keeping my steady step. I was now in Rhys back. Tamlin in front of him.

“Let’s play a little before we really get at it, what do you think?” Rhys laughed. Then he made a sudden turn toward me. I backed away a few steps, until I was standing directly in front of Nesta and Elain. His back to Tamlin, there was a brief glint of relief in his eyes; then a devilish grin took over his face.

“By the way, you should check out your border. Not everyone was happy about my entrance.”

An opening. My cue to leave. I let my hands hang by my sides, empty palms tingling. Then a small hand pushed its way into mine. It felt as though a shock ran through me at the touch. As though my magic reacted at the contact with my mate.

My other hand remained cold and empty.

Come on, Nesta.

“If you killed any of my people,” Tamlin hissed.

“You’ll do what?” Rhys replied. “It seems like you can’t even lay a finger on me.”

Nesta’s hand gripped mine in a reluctant but fierce hold. Her other hand still clutched the dagger.

“I’m going to check on the borders,” I said. My voice sounded strangled. I held those hands close, and winnowed, and even though I had two more Fae to carry besides myself, it felt like I fell through the darkness of space with more ease than I ever had.

Sunlight greeted us. Soft earth under my feet, fists clenched around two warm slender hands. We’d showed up on a hill overlooking a large valley. Tiny figures moved in the distance.

“Let go of me!” A hiss like a wild cat, and Nesta ripped her hand from mine. She must have more in common with that animal, for with a speed and agility I hadn’t reckoned with, she leapt up and tried to squeeze between Elain and me.

But Elain’s hand and mine were still one.

“Rhys,” Elain said. Her voice – I had only heard it screaming and sobbing. It was as beautiful as the rest of her. “You need to – “

“Get him,” Nesta spit.

My mate’s deep brown eyes were a well so bottomless I was surprised I hadn’t yet drowned in them. I wrenched myself from them, and almost felt my heart crack as I winnowed back, leaving the two alone on the Summer Court hill, and plunged into a scene from the Cauldron’s darkest nightmares. Fur and darkness were ubiquitous, growls and snarls and the shouts and screams of the surrounding sentinels. Tamlin faced off against Rhysand, all claws and teeth, and Rhys fended off his attacks with sudden voids of swirling darkness and magic with blinding light. The Lord of Night already showed the marks of feral weapons, long streaks of red marching down his right arm and leg. Tamlin, blinded by tendrils of smoky black, lashed out with vigor, almost beheading his own soldier who barely dashed out of the way in time. The forest was chaos. Sentinels running everywhere, no one holding position when we couldn’t prevent being overrun by these two fighting giants. And I had winnowed right into the middle of it.

Rhysand stumbled back, grimacing, and raised up a shield against another attack. He didn’t winnow out – he couldn’t. Did it mean that I couldn’t winnow him out, either? What way were Tamlin’s wards build? Someone had been able to get Rhys in, after all.

I had no more time to think. For in that moment, Rhys changed directions, and hurled himself at me both physically and with a thick, impenetrable wall of darkness. He collided with me in a jump, and I gripped whatever part of him that I could, and winnowed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left a comment or kudos for this fic! It really does mean a great deal to know that you read and enjoy this story!   
> There will be more chapters, as I have so much fun writing this, especially now that Elain and Rhys are in the picture. They will definitely feature more prominently in the future, in ways I hope you did not expect! :-)


	9. Struck Home

Bright sunlight, and we both dropped in a heap on the ground.

“High Lord?” A timid voice. Elain.

A sigh escaped me. I hadn’t even dared contemplate the possibility that I might not be able to hit the same spot I had dropped the sisters off.

“I’m all right,” Rhys huffed, sounding everything but. I sat up and found myself face to face with my beautiful, doe-eyed mate.

“That male is one insufferable brute,” Nesta fumed. “I cannot believe that he is the one Feyre once threw her fate in with.”

“He has a tendency for the feral side, yes,” Rhysand said. He was still lying on the grass, panting, but considering he’d just hassled with one of the most powerful Fae in Prythian, he didn’t seem much the worse for wear. The bloody grazes were already little more than rips in his clothes.

Not that I cared right now. Rhys could have been bleeding out beside a tap-dancing Nesta and I would not have noticed, because Elain’s eyes locked with mine were more captivating than just about anything short of a major earthquake.

“And this winnowing business is shady to say the least,” Nesta ploughed on nonetheless. “How did we end up there?”

“I’d like to know that, too,” Rhys replied.

There was a silence.

Then Rhys’ oddly hesitant voice: “Um… I’m, ah, sorry to say that, but, you know, now is really not the time for working on that bond of yours, wouldn’t you agree?”

Our heads snapped apart to meet Rhys’s wry and Nesta’s furious and suspicious stares. Neither of us spoke; maybe Elain felt as thunderstruck as I did.

“Right,” I rasped finally.

“Well then. You’ll need to get back to Tamlin and say you escaped me. I’ll be able to winnow us out from here. Tamlin’s wards prevented me from passing them using my own power. Elain winnowed us in.”

“You winnowed all three of you all the way from the Night Court?” I turned to my mate, incredulous.

“I didn’t mean to,” she murmured, eyes downcast. “It was the first time I tried winnowing at all.”

“Are you all right?”

She nodded. Her hand had miraculously found mine again.

“And what happened to you?” I asked Rhys. “You look horrible. What’s wrong with you?” Not that his wellbeing was all that dear to me, but it was to Feyre.

He grimaced. “The book. It needs keeping in check, and it takes a tremendous amount of magic to leash it.”

“The book?”

“Have Feyre tell you. We don’t have the time for it. This might be the only occasion for us to talk. We got your message, but with the book tying my powers and Tamlin’s wards around you, we couldn’t reply. Everyone else is working on readying defenses against Hybern, seeking allies, trying to infiltrate him. But it’s slow work, and Hybern has already started to march. I’m afraid we won’t be of any help for when Hybern attacks the wall.”

His crestfallen expression was mirrored a thousendfold in Nesta and Elain’s faces, whose homelands would be destroyed.

“They’ll be slower than you’d think,” I said. As I recounted what I’d done to slow the army down, it was the most elevating thing to see the light creep back in Elain’s stunning chestnut eyes.

“That’s good,” Rhysand said, finally picking himself off the ground, renewed with energy. “Lucien, that’s great. That will mean that all our plans… we might still have the time to set them in motion.”

We stood face to face in more senses than one. He had never looked at me as an equal.

After a brief internal struggle with the not so forgiving parts of me, I resolved to do him the favor of not making him ask about his mate. His face clenched while I told him about Feyre, what she’d found out and her training progress.

“I wish I could tell her she wouldn’t have to hold up for much longer,” he finally murmured.

I wished I could tell myself the same – but we’d both be lying.  

“Your friends,” I said. It didn’t feel like my place to ask, but – “Feyre will want to know whether they’re alright.”

His face darkened. “They survived. They healed reasonably well.”

Elain’s breath hitched a little. Nesta turned her stormy face away.

“Cassian has disappeared,” Rhys continued. “I can’t give Feyre more. I don’t know more.”

This was the male I had hated for centuries. This was the male I had esteemed entirely heartless, relishing in cruelty and despair of others – ravaged for trying to save two hapless girls, heartbroken over his separation from his mate, and distraught to even tell about what had happened to his friend.

He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, but I got his message anyway– I’d let Feyre know he missed her as much as she missed him. In turn, he would take care of my mate while I could not stay with her.

Though I did feel rather uncomfortable at the prospect of voicing my enemy-turned-tenuous-ally’s declaration of love to a woman who could have my head explode. Or… other parts of me.

“You need to go back,” Rhys said.

Elain’s hand was still warm in mine. She stood next to me, apart from her sister. The desperate hope that she might find her liking for a place by my side was now no longer to be oppressed.

I took a deep breath. A gentle pressure to my hand gave me reassurance. “You’ll need to mess me up a little.”

The tiny smile on Rhys’ face told me that he wasn’t entirely beyond enjoying this – I had watched his mate suffer, after all – but he didn’t get the chance to savor a swing at me, because Nesta beat him to it. Nesta, with all her new-Fae strength and the inability to control it, swung out her fist and made it connect in a very well placed, very painful hit straight on my nose.

“Nesta!” Elain cried indignantly.

I snorted through the blood streaming out of my nose. Miraculously, she had not managed to break it. “Yes, that does the trick,” I said wryly.

Nesta’s gaze was frighteningly fierce. “Go back and show me that you are worthy to have my sister. And don’t you think for one moment that you can let Feyre do all the work. I will watch you.”

“No doubt about it,” I muttered. I had the pretty firm impression that Rhys was giving me a sympathetic shrug. He’d had the good sense to retreat a few feet from Nesta’s wrath.

I allowed myself to turn my attention fully to Elain for one last, too-short moment. I had no words to say to her, but she gave me a tentative smile nonetheless. Once last squeeze of my hand, and she let go of me. I dissolved into nothing, leaving her behind once again.

....

Tamlin did not return to the manor. He cross-examined me, plunged further into rage at my hastily fabricated story about how Rhys had extracted information about Feyre from my mind and then let me go with the message that he would get her back no matter what. Then he transformed and loped off into the forest.

I wiped the blood from my face and returned to the manor accompanied by the unlucky sentinels who had been hurt in the struggle between Rhys and Tamlin. Feyre held back her questions for as long as it took to send the injured to their quarters, bandaged up as best we could. Then she pulled me into an empty study and made me retell what had happened in a hurried whisper.

“I’m sorry the two of you keep meeting in battle,” she sighed when I’d finished.

“Well, have you ever considered that maybe Rhys brings battle where he goes?”

“I meant you and Elain, idiot!”

“Oh.”

She frowned. “I felt the book of breathings. I only held it for a moment with both halves united, and it almost overwhelmed me. It must be a huge drain on Rhys’ powers to keep them in check.”

“He looked like it.”

A sigh shuddered through her.

“He…” I faltered. This was going to be so awkward. “He misses you.”

She stared at me. “So in between fighting Tamlin to the death with little to no magic, travelling all over several courts, and discussing battle tactics, you two had the time to talk about Rhys’ feelings for me?”

I threw up my hands. “Fine. I won’t tell you, then. I’ll just not tell you anything else about Rhys.”

“No, no, no,” Feyre promptly shrieked. “Don’t you dare! Tell me everything! Of course he misses me! Of course he does, I miss him something terrible!”

“By the way, I really wish he hadn’t spent the last few centuries trying to set a record for depravity and vileness. It does make it hard to see him as a friend.”

“You better be glad he doesn’t hold the same grudge,” Feyre trilled. “He sure can pack a more powerful punch than that puny blow he gave you.”

“Puny blow?” I glared. “That wasn’t him. That was Nesta.”

It should not hurt my pride that she burst out laughing at that. It should not.


	10. Night Court Troubles

\-------- _Rhys ------_

Cauldron have mercy on me.

Seriously, how was I supposed to keep this bunch alive? What had possessed me when I thought myself capable of keeping _two_ Archeron sisters safe? And what had ridden me when I had imagined myself endowed with enough patience to not just kill a certain one of them myself?

Feyre had been easy enough to manage, on her own. Mostly because she knew Prythian well enough, by the time I got to handle her, to manage herself. But those sisters of hers? Some things surpassed even the power of Prythian’s most powerful High Fae. Things like looking after Nesta and Elain Archeron. Both. At the same time. One thought it prudent to keep annoying the shit out of very – very! - dangerous Night Court individuals, and the other suddenly decided to take a surprise trip into enemy territory – how was I to counter such a blatant lack of self-preservation? The only consolation was that I would likely not have to face Feyre when she found out her sisters had gotten themselves killed under my watch, because the way this was going, I wouldn’t survive long enough to bear witness.

They were something else, both of them. Elain had always made the impression of a quiet and gentle person to me. She’d certainly seemed reasonable, like someone who’d go out of her way not to get into anybody else’s. Well… that had been before she’d been thrown into a magical vessel that took her human life and gave her immortality. I’d guess that would mess with anybody’s peace of mind – add to that the creation of a mating bond seconds after being reborn into a body barely recognizable as one’s own, and you got yourself a girl with the nervous energy to keep up with a hive of bees drunk on faery wine. Elain was alternating between fluttering about like a moth around a candle, and withdrawing into herself to the point of total stupor. The only constant was a worried frown, now permanently etched into her face, which I didn’t remember from the few times I’d seen her at her house. And much to her nosy – excuse me: concerned sister’s distress, she kept her troubles to herself. No amount of fuss bestowed upon her by Nesta could make her share her thoughts.

Nesta, though.

I lacked the words to describe her. In all of Prythian and beyond, I’d be willing to bet, there existed no other like her. Granted, she was unique for the fact that she was Made alone – but Nesta was even _uniquer_ than Feyre, Elain and Myriam put together. She had insisted – and when Nesta insisted, she got her will – that she and Elain be relocated to Velaris from my house on the peak over the Court of Nightmares. Nesta had been prowling the house like a caged tigress, making me afraid of returning to nothing but a ruin every time I had to leave for Velaris, and Elain had repeatedly eyed the pane-less windows as though she was debating whether hurling herself through them would give her wings like mine, so I had thought it best, eventually, to give in to the request. Velaris was compromised already, anyway.

I had very soon come to regret it. In Velaris, Nesta had promptly proceeded to intimidate every single inhabitant of the town who had the misfortune of passing her by on a street, and, which was worse, I had been unable to keep her and Cassian apart, and they had clashed repeatedly and with unprecedented vigor.

Those fights were hard to bear. Not because of their volume. Nor because of the words they both dredged from the bottom of what was even halfway socially acceptable. But because those had been the only occasions I had heard Cassian speak at all.

I hadn’t told him – hadn’t even insinuated and never would, not in a hundred lifetimes – but I was scared for him, scared to an extent I had never been for my own life. His wings had healed well, considering the circumstances. Only well wasn’t nearly enough. They would not carry his weight when he tried to fly. And he tried, and fell, and tried again, but there were weak patches in the fabric of his wings, and they tore the instant he put a strain on them. Cassian would never fly again.

It was all we could have hoped for that he hadn’t joined Elain at the open windows over the Court of Nightmares.

Yet.

And now he had disappeared. Never saying a word, keeping his stubborn silence to the last, he’d crept from town, disappearing without a trace, not saying where he was going or whether he would come back, not making arrangements for the army he was supposed to be leading, he just up and left. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that Nesta knew something about it. She kept a silence just as stubborn as his, admitting nothing, denying nothing.

I didn’t know whether he’d gone to finally end his life, or just couldn’t endure our company anymore, and I didn’t know whether Nesta had driven him away with her constant stabs, or whether she was simply in on something I wasn’t.

But it was Feyre’s absence, more than anything else, that set my mind and heart on edge. I’d lived with a heart of stone for fifty years, and it had been easier than going without the half of my heart she now seemed to have taken with her. It was embarrassing, really; for someone who’d dealt just fine on his own for centuries, to suddenly miss a female he had known for such an insignificant proportion of his life. I should be able to get on just fine without her, but instead I felt the distance between us as a physical weight on my limbs. I was aware of where her body _wasn’t_ lying next to me when I lay in bed; I was aware of things that weren’t being said, because she wasn’t here to say them; I anticipated her reaction to things, only to remember that I couldn’t let her know. The thoughts I couldn’t share with her slowly burned a hole into my sanity. The loss of the bargain bond was still hurting sometimes; I’d barely had to feign pain at the King of Hybern’s severing our bond. The normal ties of a mating bond weren’t as intrusive as our unusual mental link had been; normally, feelings might be conveyed in a hazier fashion, but not defined thoughts and words. I knew she was alive; I didn’t know how she was doing, back in her beautiful Spring Court prison.

Truth be told, feeling the difference between an enhanced and a normal mating bond made me wonder as to the strength of Elain and Lucien’s mental ties. I frequently saw Elain wince out of the blue when we sat at dinner, or stop and stiffen during her aimless journeys around the house. She never said what caused her reactions, in spite of Nesta’s relentless pestering, so I couldn’t be sure – but it left me with the nagging suspicion that Elain felt things coming from Lucien with a greater intensity than I did from Feyre. I tried to shove away any jealousy, telling myself that a live connection into Lucien’s mind was definitely not something to be envied. A great part of her agitation might be because she didn’t know how to deal with what she received.

Had my full powers been at my disposal, I could easily have sent Feyre messages. I could whisk a piece of paper from here to the Spring Court as easily as I used to send it from my bedroom to hers. But my powers were tied up, keeping an ancient magical object in check, subduing another power so strong and otherworldly that at times, it staggered me on the spot. Initially, Amren had offered to shoulder the burden. But the instant her considerable power extended and touched the singular awareness of the book, she withdrew. It made her wary, this object with a thinking mind. It shared secrets known only to her and whatever world she’d come from, and it made her fear that she might too easily succumb to the book’s calling – as Feyre had done when she’d united the two halves.

But the book needed to be contained. If left unchecked, it took possession of the minds of any Fae who happened to be in close proximity. We hadn’t found out what the book wanted these victims to do for it; we hadn’t let it come that far.

Now the drain on my powers had almost proven fatal when Elain’s first attempt at winnowing had abruptly and rather surprisingly landed us in the middle of Spring Court territory.

It was the result of another one of Nesta’s requests that I had granted, more willingly at that: the instant she’d seen Elain to bed the night they’d become Fae, Nesta had asked for training.  While she’d eschewed physical training – Nesta’s weapon was her mind, without doubt, and it was a sharp one – she’d since exercised her magical powers rigorously. Elain had only joined intermittently, sometimes preferring to watch, sometimes to keep to herself and brood.  But while Nesta was still struggling to move even an inch through space, Elain had gripped our hands – Nesta, of course, absolutely forbidding her first attempt at winnowing without being firmly attached to her – and a brief spell of darkness had spit us out in a blooming flower meadow.

With my magic tied up with the book that travelled with me wherever I went, I would have had no way to shield the sisters from Tamlin. Throwing a glamor over them proved almost too much for what little remained of my powers.

I owed the red-haired puppy.

I had barely caught my breath after Lucien had winnowed away, when Nesta gave me a fierce shove that actually managed to make me stumble backwards.

“What was that?” Nesta hissed venomously. If she could shapeshift, I mused, she would definitely become a snake.

“What was what?” I had no patience for her accusations.

“You were supposed to keep us safe while practicing winnowing. That means preventing something like this to happen!”

“Nesta,” Elain said, ineffectually.

“I have no idea how it happened. Contrary to popular belief, I cannot stop every bad thing from happening.”

“Take us back,” she commanded in reply.

I sighed. Tiredess was almost constantly weighing down on my bones, but I gripped their shoulders, and made the fairly big leap back to the Night Court. No idea how Elain managed that big a jump in her first try. Maybe my desire to be with Feyre had involuntarily led me to add to her powers, and direct her to where I knew I would find my mate.

We appeared in the foyer of my Velaris home, where the sisters stayed as guests – though I wasn’t sure Nesta knew what being a guest entailed; the astounding lack of politeness she demonstrated suggested that no one else had ever been careless enough to invite her to their house.

Nesta instantly started to fuss over her sister. I was the only one the worse for wear from our encounter, but far be it from her to fuss over me.

“I am not hurt, Nesta,” Elain snapped. “No one touched me. Leave me be.”

On second thought, maybe I wasn’t the only one feeling threadbare – coming face to face with Lucien must have shaken her, after all. As I studied her face for signs of trouble, I could practically see her shutting herself away – a crease of anger faded, to be replaced by slight unease, and back was her mask of recluse.

I certainly hoped the mating bond didn’t make her adopt Lucien’s way of coping with pressure – I wasn’t sure his method worked all that well for him.

Nesta straightened. She removed her hands from Elain’s shoulders, with the air of someone who’d just been mortally offended. Then, wordlessly, she turned and strode up the stairs, toward the room she shared with Elain.

Silence hung over Elain and me in Nesta’s wake.

“I’m sorry,” Elain said quietly. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“I know,” I said.

She looked through the glass doors, towards the street. Hazy figures could be seen waking on the sidewalk. I wondered whether she would have preferred to leave. And where she would have gone if she could. She stayed for Nesta’s sake as much as Nesta stayed for hers. I had slowly come to realize that while Nesta was the more outspoken of the two, Elain was the one who kept them both sane during their transition to Fae. It was only with time that she’d begun slipping away.

“I don’t understand it,” she suddenly said in a strangled whisper.

“What?”

“Him.”

She shook her head slowly, the motion seeming unconnected to her words. “Who’s to be trusted… who is our enemy.”

I hesitated. “I don’t think Lucien is our enemy.”

If I had anything more significant to say about Lucien, I would, but although I knew him better than she did, that wasn’t saying much. I couldn’t read much into his behavior in my presence; when I pretended to be the ultimate asshole, I had to expect to meet people’s asshole sides. He wasn’t an idiot of Tamlin’s proportions; actually, he hadn’t really done anything that marked him as anything special, neither good nor bad. What little I knew about him was that he’d defied his family, which I interpreted in his favor because they were epic jerks, and he’d suffered for it. And that he’d watched Feyre waste away without helping her, that he’d allowed Tamlin to mistreat her and make her suffer and done nothing to stop it. And that was it. Well, that, and the fact that he’d once accepted lashes for one shout of assistance to Feyre… maybe he was leaning somewhat more to the favorable side.

“Especially not yours,” I decided to add. “I don’t have all that much to say about him, but he’d do anything to keep you safe. He doesn’t need to know you in order to do that.”

Something shifted in Elain’s face; she suddenly seemed to be fighting hard to stop tears from coming.

“I don’t know what to do with the things that I… that I feel… from him.”

Now that was both slightly alarming, and quite a bit painful. I had been in Lucien’s mind before, and I wouldn’t wish that upon her, but I hadn’t worried because not in my wildest jealous dreams had I expected her to feel enough of it to get her down. I quickly swallowed my surprise.

“I’m not sure I can help you with that,” I told her, gently. “Only you and he can feel it, and the strength and permeability of each bond is different.” And there could be nothing stronger than the bond between Feyre and me, no matter the distance.

She swallowed. A single tear travelled down her cheek. “He’s –“

Desperately unhappy, profoundly hopeless and probably marginally suicidal? One of the most depressing minds I had ever encountered in five centuries?  

“He – “ Elain tried again.

“Yes, he’s not exactly the happiest Fae alive,” I said dryly. “Neither was Feyre, when our bond was new. And I think I can pride myself in being a factor in helping her get back to her feet. Perhaps you can do the same.”

“How can I, when I’m so far away from him?” she said bitterly.

I hid a smile. That was a parallel to Feyre and me, too. “Patience. That time will come.”

Suddenly, tears rolled down her cheeks as if a flood she’d kept back had come and overrun her. “If time makes me feel like that, why would I want it?”

“I… What do you mean?”

There had almost a sting of reproach in her voice – and so much resentfulness, bitterness. Elain still cried soundlessly, but desperately, and then she turned and followed Nesta up the stairs without another word.

“Elain!”

She stopped. I fumbled. I just hadn’t wanted to let her leave like this.

“Feyre’s in the Spring Court, too. They’re in this together, and already plotting revolution together.  For what it’s worth – for my part, I’m glad Feyre isn’t alone. That she has him, at least.”

It was no lie. I had hoped he’d be a support all through Feyre’s dark days after Under The Mountain. He hadn’t been, then, but he was starting to be one now.

She cast me a thoughtful glance, nodded noncommittally, wiped at her tears, and finally glided upstairs.

I sighed. A training session that I’d meant to last an hour at most had almost taken all night. I had a war to prepare and no time to waste. So with my clothes still in tatters, curtesy of Tamlin’s claws, I flew to the House of Wind instead of winnowing. I had never wanted to ration my magic ever again, after Amarantha, but here I was. It couldn’t be helped.

I alighted on the ground floor to be met with the picture of Azriel and Mor frantically trying to get Amren’s ear, who had closed her eyes and stood in the middle of their general din, unmoved by their pleas. Az and Mor snapped up at my arrival – Amren merely took a peek at me and closed her eyes again.

“There you are!” Mor cried. “Where were you? What did you do?” Then: “How did you get into such a state?”

“I was training with Nesta and Elain,” I simply said.

Az raised an eyebrow. “I take it the fierce one abducted her sister and you spent all day chasing and rescuing them?”

“That’s about it. Only you got the sister wrong.”

“Elain?” Mor’s eyes became impossibly wide. “Elain tried to make a run for it?”

“She didn’t do it on purpose,” I sighed. “But she did get to witness a rather enthusiastic fist-fight between Tamlin and me. Until it was his bedtime and we had to leave.” I didn’t usually let a chance to tease Mor go by, but I took pity and added a few explanatory words. “I got to reply to Feyre’s message,” I finished more nonchalantly than I felt. “So that’s that taken care of. What’s the progress on the ally front?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” Az replied darkly. “The Summer Court is still rejecting all pleas to negotiate.”

I groaned. We had set things into motion the moment we’d learned about Hybern’s plans. With Cassian incapacitated, command over the armies had temporarily been shared between Azriel and me. We’d had the first battalions ready to go in a matter of weeks, and the vast majority of the Night Court forces were on the way to the wall to intercept Hybern, but the Night Court was situated at the northern tip of Prythian, and the Spring Court at the southernmost end. Even with the use of ships for the transport of our troops, we invariably had to cross more courts than Night and Spring if we wanted to meet Hybern in battle. It had to be on land; we were bound to lose a naval battle. Erasing Velaris from the map had put an end to much of our seafaring, and our ships were old and out of repair. That meant that we had to go the other way around Prythian, take a different route than Hybern and be fast enough to engage the other army before irreparable damage to the wall was done.

We’d made good progress, and with what Lucien had told me, the time aspect of our endeavor looked considerably more hopeful than I had ever let myself think. But one thing still stood in our way, and I did not like the alternative that seemed to be our only choice: in order to reach the Spring Court, we would have to cross part of the Summer Court territory. And Tarquin, the High Lord of Summer, refused to hear our pleas, returned any letters, and prohibited any messengers we sent from conveying their case. My army was on its way to war, and I did not know whether it would ever reach its destination. 

Az and Mor still stood before me, watching me. They looked as tired as I felt. Waging a war was tiring business. Az would have to winnow back to the army tonight. Mor would try to come up with a few more creative ways to get Tarquin’s attention. And I was useless – incapacitated because I was babysitting a book.

“At least we have news from Feyre,” I repeated. Just to have something to brighten up their faces.

“Yes,” Mor agreed, albeit entirely devoid of joy . “At least we know that one of our number is still alive.”

The same could not be said about Cassian. To say that she had taken his disappearance hard would be an understatement.

“If Feyre and the Autumn Court dreg are that active, it’s even more essential to have a way to communicate,” Mor remarked.

“I know,” I said wearily. “If I knew of a way to do that, I would have done it by now.”

Suddenly, Mor perked up. A dangerous twinkle crept into her eyes – one I had seen on a few quite remarkable occasions. “I know of a way,” she breathed. “It might be a bit extreme, but under the circumstances…”The smile that now lit up her face was even more dangerous. “Come to think of it, I might have a rather unconventional way to get Tarquin to listen, too…”


	11. Hit And Run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the chapters to follow are absolutely free of spoilers for book 3! I haven't read it yet, so I have no idea what's going on there, and I intend to remain blissfully ignorant until this work is finished. Enjoy this new chapter!

 

“It’s very flowery here.”

It was, indeed. You wouldn’t have known Feyre was standing in a scene of destruction.  This was the spot where Tamlin and Rhys had their go at each other.  A few leveled trees and trampled bushes still bore witness to their squabble, but the damage was barely visible – it was drowning in buds and petals.

“Flowery?” I repeated, playing dumb. “Yes. It’s the Spring Court, you know. We have lots of flowers.”

It was getting easier to sneak out for conspiratorial meetings, what with the manor doubling as spy headquarters. There didn’t seem to be a servant who didn’t want to show his or her best efforts in helping Feyre and me. Mostly Feyre, since they had never stopped venerating her as the Cursebreaker. Though they’d known Tamlin as a good and just ruler for several centuries, they had been swayed by Alis, above all, making it clear that something needed to be done if we wanted any hope of our lands surviving the onslaught of violence, and Tamlin wasn’t going to do it.

As a result, we were now kept informed about Tamlin’s whereabouts, very precisely, and very thoroughly.

“I know.” Feyre shot me a glare. “But… haven’t you noticed that Spring has seemed a little… subdued of late?” She fixed me sharply. “Why is that?”

I sighed. That was not a minor detail she mentioned, and it hadn’t slipped my notice. “That would probably be because Tamlin gets just as frustrated as you do when deprived of his nightly pleasures.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Calanmai.”

Instantly, she tensed. “What about Calanmai?”

“There hasn’t been one.”

“Calanmai is a day of the year, Lucien, not even Tamlin’s pigheadedness can wipe that off the calendar.”

“Oh, but he can. Calanmai is nothing without the High Lord’s contribution. Which Tamlin didn’t give.”

Feyre snorted. “What, you mean, Tamlin didn’t…”

“…lay with a woman that night because he refused to lay with any other but you.”

Feyre blinked, again. “But that is…”

“It was stupid. It was stupid beyond measure and selfish to boot.”

“He didn’t renew the Spring Court’s magic!”

Her stare turned incredulous. “But that’s insane. He messed up all his court’s magic – because he sneered down at the assembled female population of his court? What does that mean for magic? What does that mean for the court?”

“Initially, I thought it wouldn’t mean that much. Nothing changed, that night. Nor the weeks and months afterwards. The change came so gradually that I almost didn’t notice. We were busy looking for you, and in the beginning, it was hard to perceive. But Spring… Spring _weakened_.”

There had been dry leaves and wilted flowers in the garden, for the first time in my memory. Bushes shed their spring bloom and turned to the lush green of summer instead. Some trees – very few yet, but, growing more – shed their green altogether, creating a sallow reflection of the gold of my birth court. There was no trace of the vitality and glow of Autumn. When they’d completed the circle with winter sleep, I was not sure they would ever wake up again.

In this meadow, which had born witness to Night and Spring’s epic clash, it was is if the Calanmai disaster had never happened. As if this year’s need had been fulfilled as it should have been. Roses were winding around a tree-trunk, not caring a bit about being hidden in its shade. The ground was peppered with tiny lilac flowers, and a few trees nearby had returned to carrying tender closed buds or blossoms abuzz with insects.

“Maybe it was because Rhys was here,” Feyre speculated, longing tinging her absent mate’s name. “Maybe he spread some of his power while he stayed.”

“He barely had any power left to spend,” I cautioned.

“Elain, then. She likes flowers. She used to tend to her own little garden. Maybe she’s developed a magical talent for nurturing flowers.”

A picture popped up in my mind, Elain on her hands and knees, coaxing a seed to grow and smiling as it did.

“She’d hardly have had time to use it, what with Tam and Rhys waltzing around tearing trees down. I can’t explain it, Feyre, but it’s not that simple.”

“Anyway.” She turned her eyes away from the new bloom with resolution. “So Rhys and the family are working on allies and armies. I told you about the book and about Tarquin. What can we do at our end?”

“There are still thousands of people who haven’t been warned – “

“On a bigger scale, Lucien! I can’t stand being stuck here doing nothing anymore!”

“We’re not doing nothing.” I tried to keep calm, though I was as wound up as she was. No need to grind on each other’s frayed nerves.

“There’s an army marching through our lands! And we’re not fighting! I call that doing nothing.”

“Rhys is the one with the army. So we’ll have to rely on Rhys to do the fighting for now.”

“Damn your coward heart, Lucien, I will not – “

“Do you think I enjoy this?” I exploded. Suddenly, we were face to face with the bristle of her powers between us. So much for keeping calm. I could feel the heat of her Autumn power radiating from her hands. “Keep your magic in check, for Cauldron’s sake,” I hissed.

She complied, albeit fumingly. “So what do you suggest?”

“We are in no position to fight,” I said, a strain in my voice despite my effort to keep it even. “So we scout.”

She sneered. “We scout?”

“You might want to hold back on your disdain. Rhys will have my neck for even suggesting this.”

“Then let’s hear it so Rhys has a reason to snap your sorry neck.”

I glowered, but she wasn’t impressed. “In order to find out anything worthwhile, we need to get as close to high-ranking military personnel as we can.  I don’t mean taking a peep from the distance, and I’ve been shot merely doing that. Now that they’re on Spring Court territory, we can get close and we have the home advantage, and I intent to use it. It’s going to be dangerous.”

I should have expected the word ’dangerous’ to elicit a smile from her.

“Lead the way, then,” Feyre crooned.

Of course, I wasn’t that deluded. I had us prepare for a day, smuggling weaponry and a few means of disguise out into the woods. Then we needed Tamlin out of the way – the servant network arranged for that, with the help of an intrepid relative of one of the house servants who posed as a messenger, sending Tam on a fool’s errant that should take him most of one day.

Finally, we were good to go. About time, because Feyre was ready to burst with her eagerness to act.

“You ready?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You okay with skipping the dramatic speeches?”

Feyre shrugged. “Fine with me.” She grabbed my hand and winnowed.

Deepest forest darkness greeted us, miles away from the scanter shore woods that we’d planned on arriving. Feyre’s accuracy in winnowing long distances was still abysmal.

“That could have turned out badly,” I commented dryly.

“Well, it’s close enough,” she said, looking about herself sheepishly.

I sighed, grabbed her hand in turn and winnowed us the remaining short distance to where we had intended to go. That was as far as we would winnow. The rest of the way, we would go on foot, so as not to trigger some kind of alarms.

Disguised and glamoured as we usually went – and glamouring was one of Feyre’s more prodigious talents, I had to admit – we embarked on a hike that took us along the shoreline, ever closer to the ominous dark masses of black that we could already see clogging the distant sea. Lone fishermen’s houses and smaller villages lay abandoned along the way – people had fled rather than risk being the victim of Hybern soldiers’ cruel sense of humour.

The road led through a larger settlement overlooking the blackened sea. The village was one of the first we’d come to warn, a priority due to its exposed position on the shore. That had been before the army had progressed this far.

I would have expected the place to have been abandoned by now. But although the streets were empty, the houses weren’t. Wary faces leered at us through windows as we passed the deserted streets.

“We visited this one,” Feyre murmured as we passed. “Why are they still here?”

“I assume not all the villages we warned decided to yield,” I replied.

A heavy feeling settled in my stomach. We hadn’t been able to do more than warn them. Forewarned was forearmed, but still not saved. This war would cost the lives of many.

A shutter snapped close to my right.

“They look hostile,” Feyre whispered, glancing at the windows. “We’ve never been received like this.”

My uneasiness grew. I regretted not have taken the longer walk around the village. To turn around now would be behaving conspicuously.

The street opened to a village square, small and covered with nothing but trodden earth, but the largest open space yet.

And all hell broke loose.

Simultaneously, every home, store and shop surrounding the square exploded into action. Windows were thrown open, doors crashed into walls with the vigor of their thrust. Fairies appeared, scores of them pouring out of every opening, clad in heavy black armour and carrying all too familiar looming crossbows – Hybern soldiers.

We had walked right into an ambush.

Feyre spun around, frantically, taking in the small armada readied against us. They had us surrounded so fast there was no chance at escape. We were trapped, back to back in a shrinking circle within the masses of soldiers.

They did not shoot yet.

“How did they know we were here?” she hissed to me, sideways, barely making either sound or movement.

The circle drew tighter. Arrow tips glinted wetly in the sea-side sun. A figure disengaged from the formation to meet us. My fingers grazed Feyre’s sleeve. I found purchase on her arm, and winnowed.

Or rather, I tried. And nothing happened.

“Lose your disguise,” the lone figure shouted. No petty verbal show of strength.

We remained, frozen. Feyre had noticed my attempt to winnow. We were trapped.

“Take off your hood and glamour,” the male bellowed, impatient. “You managed to fool us for long enough now.”

Long enough? I chanced a glance to Feyre. We’d been in this area for all but two hours. 

“Take off your disguise or we will take if off for you,” the soldier growled, raising an arm. All around us, a hundred poisoned arrows were notched. “Along with your heads.”

We had no chance to survive.

“I’ll make a distraction,” I murmured under my breath. “You gather your darkness and disappear. Hopefully, this block is only on winnowing.”

“Yes, I think leaving is advisable,” Feyre said. There was a hint of amusement in her voice. “Though I’d rather stay and watch the show.” My head whipped around to her. Reckless and crazy she might be, but that kind of crazy?

A slow smile grew on her face.

A second later I realized why.

The Hybern speaker froze. Not froze as if startled – he froze as if an invisible fist had taken hold of him and pressed the air out of his lungs. And another second later, I saw the owner of the fist.

A woman was strolling through the assembled warriors – a tall, slender woman, whom I would have called beautiful if not for the feral look on her face. She ambled through the ranks as if she had not a care in the world. Feyre must have noticed her sooner.

“You’ve got the wrong guys,” she purred nonchalantly.

With a low whirring sound, utterly disproportionate in its hush to the havoc about to ensue, a hundred crossbows were drawn and loosed. Bolts flew, not aimed at us any longer, but at her.

She might be able to incinerate them all with a twist of her hand before they reached her. She might, but I certainly couldn’t.  A wall of poisoned iron hurtled through the air. It was a last ditch effort I made – to seize Feyre, hoping her smaller body would be shielded by mine so that the warrior woman might retrieve her from the mess of my arrow-riddled corpse, later, after she’d done to the soldiers what I didn’t regret never knowing about.

I clung to Feyre and she clung to me, only I wasn’t pierced by a flying death.

Instead, I flew.

Black shapes exploded from Feyre’s back and we shot straight up into the air, out of the way, out of firing range, right into the clear blue sky.

Wind tore at us as if it wanted to rip us apart, and breathing was impossible as we rose ever higher, ever higher, until all the world consisted of was Feyre’s and my bodies twisted tightly together. And I was literally holding on to dear life.

Barely audible over the raucous wind, Feyre screamed an exhilarated whoop. She was laughing at the top of her voice, as free and elated a laugh as I had ever heard laughed in this world, as I was sure had ever been sounded in this world.

“We’re flying,” she exclaimed, screaming it to the winds. “I am _flying_!”

I could not possibly reply. I was twice her size and four times her weight, and she’d lifted me clear off the ground and was hauling me hundreds of feet over the earth, _flying_ , tearing me through the air.

“I have never flown on my own two wings,” she shouted, between whoops. “I’m flying!”

I clung on to her as the powerful beat of her wings carried us away, carried us through thin air and over the lands far, far below, accompanied by her manic laughter all along the way, until she set us down on an empty stretch of land bordering one of the many forests. She alighted with a graceful hop, and I slammed into the ground with my knees buckling. I felt like I hadn’t managed to take one breath all through the flight.

“Rhys, I flew,” Feyre shouted to the winds, craning her neck upwards. “I _flew_!”

I couldn’t even think about standing up right now.

Feyre whirled towards me.

“And we met Mor! She’s going to come after us, a few Hybern scum soldiers aren’t going to trouble her much.”

She skipped towards where I was on the ground on all fours, shaking, and threw her arms around me in a crushing hug.

“Oh my,” she said when she let go of me. Her hand rested on my frantically beating heart. “I really did not give you an easy start into flying, did I?”

Beside her, the strange woman popped into being.

“Pathetic,” was her first word, addressed to me. Her disdainful gaze told me the same.

“Mor,” Feyre exclaimed, bouncing up to give the she-demon a taste of her crushing embrace. On a closer look, I recognized the woman as the one who had been with Rhys’ and Feyre’s little party when they made that fateful foray into Hybern’s castle.

The two engaged in a quick, bubbling conversation, completely ignoring me. I used the reprieve to pick myself up, though my legs felt distinctly unsteady. I hoped I’d be spared the humiliation of a breaking voice in that person’s presence, but I’d barely managed to catch my breath when the two decided to include me in the goings-on.

“I’ve been trying to wheedle out some information from those spineless bastards that call themselves an army ever since they set foot on this continent. What are you two doing here? I was planning to waylay you, but in a somewhat less exposed location.”

“We were trying to do the same,” Feyre explained, “though I guess we can forget about that now. What did you find out?”

“Nothing,” Mor said with a darkening face. “I was trying to find out where they keep the Cauldron, but the King keeps its location a tightly guarded secret. I’ve had no luck whatsoever. Why did you bring this weasel, Feyre?”

“Give him a rest, Mor. I do think he tried to protect me back there,” Feyre said lightly and with a rather patronizing pat on my arm.

“Protect you?” Mor sneered. “He really has no idea, does he?”

“Some of us have limited options,” I rasped, anger chasing the tremor from my voice, “Seeing as we don’t all sprout wings.”

“Well,” she replied haughtily, “In light of the fact that you tried your pathetic best to save Feyre, I will cut you some slack.”

“He did save Rhys and Nesta and Elain as well, didn’t Rhys tell you about that?” Feyre told her airily.

The Night Court warrior harrumphed. “Why is everyone in such a habit of being saved lately? You do know it entails having been in mortal danger before?”

“Don’t we all do it,” Feyre countered smugly. Her tone was so much lighter, bantering with this intimidating friend of hers.

Mor sobered. “You will need to get back. I’m found out, and I haven’t been achieving anything, anyway. These lands will be swarming with soldiers within a few minutes. We’ll need to confer quickly. Feyre, we’re not making any progress on the Summer Court front, and Tarquin proves to be a crucial ally. So far, he hasn’t declared sides with anyone, but we know Autumn is schmoozing him, and we cannot afford that alliance. Rhys says he liked you. Do you have any suggestion for us?”

“Only to use honesty. Lying was what cost us his friendship in the first place.”

Mor nodded tightly. “Yes, that corroborates my plan. Well, time’s up. Look, I’ll just winnow out, I don’t care if that big oaf notices I’ve been here. Will you be okay?”

“We’ll be fine, we’ll simply fly if there are any more winnowing blocks,” Feyre answered brightly, and they hugged again. I interjected a weak “No,” but I don’t think either of them cared.

Mor winnowed out, and Feyre turned her attention back to me. “Just kidding,” she said with a wicked grin. “I don’t want you to pass out while on the run, it wouldn’t be worth the trouble.”

I wasted no time on a scowl, but grabbed her and winnowed before she could change her mind.


	12. Fused

Feyre’s exuberant bubbliness dimmed somewhat during our walk back to the manor, but enough remained to make her chatter incessantly throughout the way. It conveniently gave me some respite to work on getting a grip on the lingering flying-induced wooziness.

“I hadn’t pegged Mor as the diplomatic type, to be honest, so I can’t say I’m surprised she’s not getting anywhere with Tarquin. She probably tried to scare the shit out of his whole family – but they’ve survived Under The Mountain, so I’ll take it that the bullying tactic won’t work so well. I keep wondering what would have happened if we’d been straight with them from the start. It was a risk we had not been willing to make, and I don’t regret that decision, but in hindsight… Maybe I should go to the Summer Court myself,” Feyre mused. “Maybe that’s what Tarquin’s waiting for.”

“A blood ruby makes a fairly clear statement,” I commented dryly. “Bit of a stretch to interpret as an invitation.”

“We have to do more!” she cried, striding faster in agitation. “Hybern is advancing and we’re a Cauldron-stirred mess of a court with no defense strategy whatsoever and not nearly ready to engage in open battle. There’s got to be something we can do.”

I stopped dead at the sound of a loud rustle coming from her.

“Venting your frustration?” I pointedly looked over her shoulders, where the dark mass of her wings had reappeared, spans of black velvet creating a halo of night around her.

She raised her chin in a show of dignified defiance. “It feels very liberating.” The wings rose majestically, then folded back into her without a trace.

We resumed our walking.

“This would be a lot easier if I had been able to travel the courts after Under the Mountain, establish relationships with the new High Lords,” I said. “Gaining trust takes time. Having ignored them for months and months has cost us more than we can afford.” Had things gone back to normal after Amarantha, I would have started to visit the other courts one by one, as soon as the Spring Court was back on its feet, creating diplomatic ties with the new ruling class. Feyre’s departure and our subsequent preoccupation in the search for her had put a stop to that.

Feyre peered at me sideways. I almost groaned at the wicked glint in her eyes. “You’re still the Spring Court emissary, aren’t you?” she said. “Maybe it’s time you resumed your duties.”

I snorted. “Are you saying there’s a chance I’ll succeed where your precious Night Court family didn’t?”

“A slight chance,” she said with a grin, “but yes. Tarquin’s been looking for a likeminded friend since he was freed from Under the Mountain. Rhys and I disappointed him in that respect – and I’m afraid we didn’t make it easier to get into his good books for all who follow – but as I see it, you’re pretty much our last resort. If you manage to get him to listen, you can explain.”

“Explain?” I repeated, choosing to ignore the dubious compliment of being a last resort. “As in, explain that you sneaked your way into his confidence, only to betray his tenuous trust with the theft of the most dangerous and valuable artifact in his whole court, so that you could thwart the King of Hybern’s plans of using an even more dangerous and valuable artifact, an endeavor in which you failed magnificently due to the interference of Tamlin’s and my exorbitantly idiotic and monumentally stupid selves?”

“Exactly like that. Though I think you should expound a little more on the exorbitant idiocy and monumental stupidity.”

“Well. That’s going to go down easy.”

“I have complete faith in your sweet tongue.”

“I’m going to need Tamlin in on it. This is a several-days mission, not feasible as a sneak-out-and-get-the-hell-back-before-he-notices. I need an official mandate to promote Spring Court interests.”

I caught Feyre grinning at me mischievously, and realized she had already started plotting. I sighed in resignation.

****

It took Feyre about two minutes to concoct a plan, and an hour later, she was facing Tamlin across the dinner table, animatedly reciting her story with just the right measure of carelessness and outrage in her voice. I was about ready to applaud by the time she finished: “And I didn’t even know what those gems meant, and then Rhys said it was basically a declaration of war, and I hadn’t even really met this Tarquin guy, not when I was in my right mind, anyway.”

Tamlin looked inclined to march over to the Night Court and punch Rhysand in the face for this atrocious treatment of his mate, disregarding the fact that last time he’d tried to land a punch on Rhys, it hadn’t turned out so well.

“That was a fine political trap,” he growled. “Tarquin could be an ally if Rhys hadn’t set you up against him.”

“Well, that ship has sailed,” I remarked.  

“Sadly so,” Feyre agreed. “I wish I could go and set it right. I’m sure Tarquin would understand that I bear him no ill will once he knows I had been manipulated.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t,” Tamlin acquiesced.

“Careful,” I said in mock earnestness. “Next thing she’ll show up on Summer’s door step with a gift basket and a bouquet of flowers.”

“If I were as experienced a diplomat as you, Lucien,” Feyre said pointedly, “Maybe I would come up with something of more interest to the Summer Court to put in that basket.”

“What a shame you’re a social oaf.”

“The Summer Court would be a useful ally,” Tamlin mused.

“Just because I don’t have your skill level in skullduggery doesn’t mean I’m socially inept,” Feyre protested.

“Actually, Lucien,” Tamlin interrupted our bickering. “Why don’t the two us get to the study later and discuss a diplomatic mission to Summer?”

****

The sun burned hotter than my guilty conscience in the Summer Court city of Adriata.

Inside the palace, the flagstone floor had radiated cool, the airy room where I had sat opposite a stone-faced High Lord of Summer well sheltered from the boiling temperatures outside. It could as well have been the High Lord and his cousin’s frozen features and icy silence that gave the place a chill.

Although I had Feyre’s permission to disclose information about the Book of Breathings and the Cauldron, I had to get a feel for Tarquin and his courtiers first. While matters were getting increasingly desperate, it wouldn’t to do swoop in on them like an Illyrian to a battle field. Feyre had recommended honesty, and I would heed her advice. Indeed, Tarquin seemed to be a notably open player in the field of politics, but that didn’t mean he lacked the necessary cunning to see to the benefits of his court. He needed the opportunity to sound me out first, realize I was serious, have a little time to soften. He needed time to size me up, just as I was getting the measure of him. If I was going to tell him the whole story, I was going to maximize the impact.

I’d dine with him and his confidants tonight, hoping they’d had a little time to ponder our first meeting. It had ended rather abruptly when his next supplicants arrived, and I’d been led out into the sweltering streets of Adriata once more.

Summer was not a place for me, less so even than Spring. Despite family animosity, I loved my birth court fiercely. There was nothing that could set me at peace like a bout of Autumn rain, the rustling of leaves floating on a breeze. Autumn had warmth, and it had crispness, but nothing of this suffocating heat.

The view of the sea was spectacular though, and the glint of sunlight on the polished roofs of the city was breathtaking. The early morning light had washed the streets in freshness, and I’d watched the sun painting the city in glittering shades of white and yellow as it rose from the turquoise sea into the brilliant sky.  The steady hum of the multitude of inhabitants was an invigorating change from the calm and emptiness permeating the Spring Court manor.

Tarquin’s accommodations were grand to say the least. Everything about this city exuded a desire for beauty, but the palace surely was the epitome of it. With its elegant slender towers spiraling their way up into the sky, it looked fragile and daring, and the elaborate decorations stuck upon everything spoke of delicacy and wealth.

With the sun halfway to its zenith, half the opulent walls still lay in a cool darkness while the other half was bathed in light. I stood in the shade below those soaring towers, the sprawling city behind me bedecking the short distance between palace and shore. Everything was close to the shore in this anthill of sun and salt. Two feet in front of me, the sea lapped at the city, only the last vestiges of the stronger waves reaching high enough to greet the low wall that marked the high tide. In a few hours, the sand would be dry, only to be embraced by the water again later. It exuded a very tangible temptation to take off one’s boots and clear that waist-high wall, and wait for the next wave to roll over bare feet. 

There was a tickling in my chest, a tingling tug of excitement. Maybe I had missed travelling the courts more than I had thought. I felt vaguely reminded of the Hybern castle, though how that would connect to the joy of travelling I didn’t know. It had a wistful edge to it.

Boisterous voices coming out of the palace had me snap back to myself. I turned from the view, almost reluctant – and froze.

Like an apparition, a figure stood before me in the scintillating midmorning light. The sun was in her back, plunging her face in shadows, but I didn’t need to see her to know who she was. My mate – my mate! Elain returned my stare with parted lips, as if frozen in the act of drawing breath to speak. Her brown eyes were wide and unblinking. And then the voices groped their way back into my consciousness.

“The audacity to show up here. After all that happened in Spring, his position is a lot more precarious than is good for him.”

“His timing irks me much more. We were making progress with Tarquin.”

My heart iced over. Those were the voices that haunted me in my memories. My most insistent recollection of them was them laughing, laughing out loud while my love bled out on cold black stones.

My brothers.

“This time, when we meet him, he’s fair game. I’m going to endure his impertinence no longer.”

“I wouldn’t be rash about it. We can’t be sure his alliance with Tamlin is breaking. If the rumors are false, you’d get us into a spot of bother by drawing his blood. I have no interest in having an enraged Spring beast showing up for vengeance.”

They were coming nearer. They were exiting the palace. They were passing along the narrow street that led from the palace square directly the shore. Elain and I were standing right where that street opened up to the sea.

Without thinking twice, I grabbed Elain around the waist and took the only way open: I hurled her and me over the low railing separating the shore from the city.

During low tide, there would be a long stretch of beach inviting walks in the warm sand. As it was, we took a drop of about four feet, and landed hard on a thin stretch of sand, shielded from view by the crumbling stone wall in our backs. If someone were to look down, my red hair would shine like a beacon.

Cold water drenched my side; the waves barely reached a few inches of height as their last tongues crawled over the expanse of sand.

“There’s a war coming. Chances are he won’t survive it anyway.”

“I can’t really be bothered. He’s been quiet enough ever since he left Autumn, except from that short time Under the Mountain. If only after that, Tamlin hadn’t been so much harder to deal with.”

I could hear their footsteps. They were three, and my mind painted me their faces very vividly as I shrunk down into the sand, Elain half buried beneath me. She was looking remarkable composed, considering that a more or less stranger male had just made a dash for a precipice with her. Elain – my mate right here, in my presence, in my brothers’ presence – my heart beat against her in a flurry, as pictures of what would happen unfolded in my mind – if they saw her, with me, noticed the mating bond… she’d be a pawn in their games. They would manipulate her, they would delight in hurting her. They would –

I squeezed my eyes shut as my imagination outdid itself in creating images of Elain as I’d seen Isa, bloody and torn, wings ripped from her back –

A hand pressed against my throbbing pulse. I snapped my eyes open to have them fall right into Elain’s.

“It seems as though the human has become a spot of bother of her own, as well,” my eldest brother, Adalon, said. “We could have done away with her before, but she presented too much of an amusement with Amarantha do act on it then.”

Sweat beaded my body as Adalon’s voice dredged memories out from the surface of my mind, so long ago yet so often remembered. I flattened into the wet sand, fully aware of how cowardly I was hiding, but I wouldn’t risk a fight, not when Elain was present. They were three, and I was one, and Elain was not a fighter, and what they could do to her while I was engaged in a fight with two of them… Summer’s sand and water turned to the blood-slick floor of an Autumn Court room around me.

“The human annoys me to no end. Tarquin kept coming back to her – she must have made an impression when she was here. I’m beginning to think that maybe she biased him against us – considering her company, she might be on the warpath were we’re concerned, just like our baby brother.”

There was the sudden but distinct sensation of a soft pair of lips touching my snarling ones.

My eyes flew open and I was back to this world and the presence. I just barely contained a gasp as I again met Elain’s deep-brown eyes blinking back at me, unabashed.

She _was kissing me._

My mind had been wiped utterly blank in a blink, unwelcome thoughts eradicated. My brothers kept talking, but I could no longer hear them. My heart was still beating wildly, but now it was for a different reason. Elain met my gaze, and I drowned in hers, and the whole war could have passed with the two of us lying here, none the wiser.

Elain smiled. I felt as if I’d taken an airborne journey from the Summer Court to Spring and back on Feyre’s wings.

“They’ve gone now,” she said softly.

I briefly felt my face turn hot and red before I leaped up faster than I had taken her down and all but threw her over the railing. Her dress was drenched and rendered heavy with salt and mud, and wet sand caked her elbow and clung to her hair.

“I’m – “ My throat suddenly constricted so much I didn’t get any words out. I reached out to steady her and almost brushed the sand from her skin, the motion turning into an ineffectual flapping as I stopped myself just in time.

“It’s okay,” Elain said, sounding a little breathless but serene, “it would have been rather unpleasant for us to meet these males, wouldn’t it?” She smiled that smile again. “Thank you.”

“We need to…” I tried to give myself a mental slap to escape the effect of that dazzling smile. “We need to get out of here,” I croaked. I pulled her with me, the way my brothers had come, through the doorway towards the palace. They wouldn’t dare try anything in Tarquin’s home.

I still thought her strikingly composed, but she did look a little pale as I pushed her along, over the square and into the entrance hall. The inside of the palace was considerably colder than the sunbathed outside. She shivered. The first time I’d met her, she’d been shivering as well. Was it a coincidence or did I cause her to be cold and miserable in my presence?

I fumbled for something to say to her, but nothing would come to mind. Cauldron boil me, I had been sent here specifically for my talent with words, and here I was, failing spectacularly the moment something came up that could not be solved by cunning alone. We faced each other to no more sound but the dripping of our clothes on the cold marble floor.

Then a dry voice cut into the dripping: “There must be an interesting story behind that sight.”

Both Elain and I swiveled around as if caught in the act of something forbidden.

Tarquin paused. He looked at me. Looked at her. Slowly raised one of his eyebrows – and voiced his dawning realization in a mildly interested, “Ah.”

“We didn’t know we would both be here,” Elain started.

“We never intended to meet,” I sputtered.

“It’s been a coincidence.”

“Badly timed…”

“Very ill conceived…”

“Really not on purpose…”

By now, I really didn’t know whether I was apologizing to Tarquin or to Elain, but my mate was as flustered as I was.

Tarquin, completely unfazed High Lord that he was, majestically raised a hand in the air, and snapped his fingers with a theatric crack. He kept looking at us, and seemed faintly amused at meeting nothing but completely nonplussed stares. He nodded subtly down our bodies to indicate our now impeccable state of attire. Little puddles of water and heaps of sand surrounded us. Then he raised his eyebrow even higher – and turned and motioned for us to follow.

Elain and I shared a quick glance and simultaneously shrugged as soon as his back was turned. I felt like a naughty child.

“I have already heard Elain’s story about the reasons behind her sister’s and the High Lord of Night’s actions,” Tarquin called back without turning, striding purposefully down the hall. “Were you going to tell me the same?”

“Er…” He led us into the room in which he’d held council with me before, where he wasted no time on pleasantries and regally sat down behind his desk. I hurried to get some words out. “I was going to explain that Feyre needed the book so she could annihilate the Cauldron’s powers so she could stop the King of Hybern from using it so he wouldn’t break the wall.” I realized I was the only one standing and quickly sat down in the only remaining chair, which happened to be very closely beside Elain’s. “She, uh…” I tried to subtly shift my chair a little further away, “she is sorry. She’s very sorry.”

“Yes, that would be the same story,” Elain said with the air of reminding me to water the flowers. She was studiously not looking my way.

“Ah. Right.”    

Distantly, it occurred to me that Tarquin was probably using our befuddled state of mind to extract the truth from us. But he pressed on so quickly that there was no resisting.

“Well then, since Feyre apparently has enough power spread over all of Prythian to send her allies from the Courts of Night and Spring simultaneously – why does she not face up to her deeds and visit me herself?”

“Feyre didn’t send me,” Elain hurried to say, at the same time as I said: “The Spring Court isn’t really her ally.” Then we stopped and looked at each other.

Tarquin nodded. He seemed to be studying his feet for some reason. “Then who sent you and whose ally is she?”

“We all decided I should come, it’s probably because I seem the most harmless,” Elain said.

“Well, things between Feyre and Tamlin aren’t as they were before,” I said over her.

“Things in the Night Court sometimes are decided very haphazardly, and Rhys doesn’t always get what he wants…”

“So I think it’s safe to say that Feyre is not only a staunch ally of the Night Court but belongs to the Night Court herself…”

“So ultimately it was my choice.”

“And so far that’s only the Night Court.”

Tarquin didn’t reply. He still seemed keenly interested in the floor.

My mind was a little delayed in comprehending what Elain had been saying, but, “Wait,” I finally asked her, “that demon sister of yours was okay with you coming here all by yourself?”

“Don’t call her my demon sister, and of course not, she’s in the city, but she had to promise not to come face to face with anyone important.”

“That was probably wise.”

“And what do you mean, Feyre isn’t allied with the Spring Court? I thought you were Spring Court!”

“I don’t know, I’m not really anything anymore,” I said, a little on the defensive.

“Don’t call yourself not anything!”

“What? Why shouldn’t I call myself anything?”

“You called yourself nothing!”

“But why should I call myself anything?”

“You shouldn’t call yourself nothing!”

“What?”

A strangled snort reminded me that Tarquin was still present. Our heads swiveled around to catch his shoulders shaking slightly, but his face was straight.

“I just remembered, I have a … something… really important…” he spluttered, and with a hurry very unbecoming a High Lord in his own council room, made a dash for the door.

He left a dumbfounded silence in his wake, during which we both stared at the closed door, rather than looking at each other.

“I have an inkling we might have given away a little more than what we were authorized to say,” Elain finally ventured.

“That is something of an understatement,” I agreed.

“He is very clever, don’t you think?”

“He is one cunning bastard.”

“Lucien!”

“What?”

“He is a High Lord!”

“He is one cunning High Lord, then!”

“Yes, he is!” Her cheeks were tinged a very pretty pink.

“I’m sorry for startling you,” I said.

“So am I.”

“Um…” Somehow, the words _Elain, why did you kiss me?_ seemed to express disapproval of the fact, which was one impression I did not intent to make until my dying day.

“You seemed so scared,” she said, sheepishly. “I could think of nothing else to calm you down.”

“Hu.” I had no more eloquent reply either for the fact that she’d replied to a question I hadn’t spoken out loud nor for the fact that I had truly been scared out of my wits.

She continued. “I’ve also been feeling things from your end ever since… this happened, and I wanted to… “

Uh-oh.

“Well, I thought you needed a good kiss.” Her cheeks now turned a flamboyantly glowing red.

“A good… that…”

She looked up at me from underneath her lashes. I swear if she had the slightest idea how those big brown eyes looked when peeking out from those long silky lashes of hers, she would have one very potent weapon at her hands. My face followed suit in the flaming color scheme.

“If it wasn’t good…”

“It was brilliant,” I sputtered. “Brilliant. It was brilliant. It was…brilliant!”

The humiliation of that was soon to be topped by that of facing a forcedly straight-faced Tarquin, and even this, in my very near future, was going to be outmatched in recounting the whole incident to Feyre, who would be rolling on the grass with laughter.


End file.
